Belonging Matters

At Intercultural Strategies, we help leaders and organizations build cultures of belonging so that you can leverage everyone's strengths and, together, create change to address your priority social, environmental, or system challenges.

join our complimentary online gathering

Build Belonging From the Inside Out: Connect with yourself and other leaders

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023 @ 12:00 PM Pacific (PDT)

Relationships matter, which is why Belonging Matters.

The Belonging Matters framework provides an opportunity for changed mindsets, deeper interconnections, greater social capital, and stronger communities...

Relationships matter, which is why Belonging Matters. This doesn't happen naturally or easily in today's busy, distracted world. Having a framework and toolkit for guidance and support can make all the difference.

Don't dabble. Commit to the whole process and stay the course. Let Jessie Sutherland, who walks the talk, guide you on a transformational journey. She has faced adversity, understands the long-term effects of trauma, and brings both personal and professional knowledge to her work.

Belonging Matters: A Framework For Lasting Change

Jessie Sutherland and Elder Financial Awareness Group - 2001

Jessie Sutherland has developed Intercultural Strategies and the Belonging Matters framework to provide the knowledge, processes and tools that can bridge the gap between people with lived experience and system influencers in order to create lasting and sustainable personal and community change.

How Intercultural Strategies Can Help You

Access the support you and your organization need to engage diversity, build cultures of belonging, and ignite collaboration to effectively address your priority challenges.

Jessie Sutherland - Speaker

Speaking

Arrange for Jessie to speak at your organization or next event/show.

Jessie Sutherland - Trainer

Training

Discover learning opportunities to build a culture of belonging in your context.

Jessie Sutherland - Consultant

Consulting

Customize your approach to create lasting change for your next initiative.

Upcoming & Current Opportunities

Belonging Matters Conversations For Leaders: Workplace Sabotage

If you've ever been the target of workplace sabotage as you try to facilitate change, you know how the impact on your own mental and physical health can linger for years⁠—eroding your sense of trust in yourself and others. For many, it shakes our sense of belonging to the core.

In this series of 4 conversations with a small cohort of leaders like you, we will share stories, explore root causes and come up with some tips and strategies to respond and recover from workplace sabotage.

How one changemaker integrated the Belonging Matters approach in her own work...

The Impact of Belonging Matters

profile-pic
Nabila Alibhai Kenya

Jessie’s uncanny talent for teasing out self-realizations will undoubtedly transform your approach to resolving conflicts.

Engaging and energetic, Jessie Sutherland personalizes global challenges through enabling a true understanding of conflict transformation. I left her workshop with a greater understanding of how to bring about successful reconciliation at both the personal and political levels. Jessie’s uncanny talent for teasing out self-realizations will undoubtedly transform your approach to resolving conflicts.

profile-pic
Chief Robert Joseph Hereditary Chief, Gwa wa Enuk First Nations

...the greatest potential for bringing about the needed healing and reconciliation...

Jessie Sutherland’s worldview skills may well be the insight that provides the greatest potential for bringing about the needed healing and reconciliation that must take place. It has the potential to provide the spark required to bring real peace, balance, and harmony…

profile-pic
Dr. Ihab Banabila PhD in European Law, University of Montpellier, France

...new steps to humanize the planet to its highest degree!

Bringing human consciousness to a higher degree of vision is a guarantee of better understanding, better communication, better common vision and thus the seeds of lasting peace and serenity… The work of Jessie Sutherland is an exceptional contribution - so needed new steps to humanize the planet to its highest degree!

profile-pic
Amanda Brown RSW, Director, ReAct Adult Protection Program, West Vancouver Community Health Centre

As a society, we need to shift from a reactive mode to a prevention mode like what Belonging Matters provides.

As a society, we need to shift from a reactive mode to a prevention mode like what Belonging Matters Conversations provides. The more that we hear the voices of people impacted the most, the more respectful the process and the better the outcomes.

We need to support grassroots and community empowerment processes to achieve prevention and real change.

profile-pic
Eliana Jimeno International Peacebuilding Specialist

...tools and a perspective to empower yourself and the people around you...

The Belonging Matters approach is an ever-relevant process in the multicultural, diverse world we are living in. It provides you with tools and a perspective to empower yourself and the people around you to create spaces where we can all be our full selves and feel welcomed.

As an approach, the framework gives value to the input that each person involved in the process has to offer and gives every person's voice the same value. From its design, the framework has a horizontal approach that helps people to experience what a community of belonging feels like. I would recommend Belonging Matters to people who struggle with their own sense of belonging as well as to teams and groups who want to build a common space where their needs are met and identities are honored.

profile-pic
Honourable Senator Roméo Dallaire Former UN Force Commander, Former Senate Member

This is exactly what has to happen.

That concept of finding that home, that serenity, that reference point from which you can build your hope and can in fact provide future generations with an ability to do more is absolutely essential.

Intercultural Strategies: Latest Articles

Climate Action and Social Problems: How to Address Both

Climate Action and Social Problems: How to Address Both

See how 3 projects accomplished goals for both addressing their priority social challenges and contributing to local climate action.

Read More
Tips for Navigating Narcissism & Belonging to Oneself

Tips for Navigating Narcissism & Belonging to Oneself

If you find yourself navigating narcissism within your relationships, these 5 tips from our Belonging Matters leaders may be helpful.

Read More
5 Benefits of Visual Legacies in Building Belonging

5 Benefits of Visual Legacies in Building Belonging

Discover the benefits of visual legacies and building belonging through showcasing the voice and expertise of people with lived experience.

Read More

When people feel a sense of belonging, they do their best work together to address challenging situations and complex social problems.


You can help facilitate this important change.

>