Big change starts around small tables.
Dinners by Design are intentional, guided conversations that bring people together to share stories, build trust, and spark transformation—one meal at a time.
📥 Download the "Courageous Conversations" Guide
Many teams avoid tough conversations—or push through them without care. The result? More distance, more frustration, and no real progress.
Our Dinners by Design create space for authentic, structured dialogue. We help you slow down, listen deeply, and move forward together.
We bring the framework, facilitation, and questions. You bring your team, your appetite, and your willingness to engage.
Let’s set the table for something different.
After just one dinner, teams leave more connected, open, and ready to lead from a place of empathy and understanding.
What Happens at the Dinner Table?
A Dinner by Design is more than just a shared meal—it’s a meaningful moment of reflection, connection, and conversation.
These dinners are:
🍽️ Hosted in an intimate setting (in-person or virtual)
🍽️ Guided by thoughtful questions and expert facilitation
🍽️ Centered on identity, belonging, and lived experience
🍽️ Designed to build deeper understanding across difference
Whether it’s your leadership team, staff, or community group—Dinners by Design help uncover what’s often left unsaid in a typical meeting room.
Why Conversation Matters
It’s easy to keep moving. To keep “working through it.” But real change—real connection—only happens when we slow down.
At a Dinner by Design, people feel:
Seen and heard
Less alone
Invited to share their truth
More willing to understand others
Open to a new way forward
"The biggest shifts we’ve seen don’t come from another PowerPoint. They start right here—over a meal, with a story, in community."
Select Your Course
SMALL PLATE
Great for team building, board engagement, or coalition building.
One event for up to 15 participants.
Select a Date and Time.
Book with 1 month advance notice.
Select one of our 5 predesigned Signature Topic Discussion Cards (“Dear White Parents,” “An Honest Letter from Sam,” “Caste - Chapter 3,” “If I had Sneeze,” “The Birmingham Letter”)
We send a facilitator to be on site to lead the event.
ENTREE
Perfect for pre-conference sessions, broad community engagement, and policy engagement.
Host 100- 500 small dinner tables for up to 4,000 guests.
We will train your local facilitators and send a team of 2-3 Lead Facilitators to be on site for the events.
We will custom curate your Dinner Discussion Card “menu” and design the overall “run of show” agenda.
Best for a large venue.
Book with 3 months advance notice.
Guests are contacted before and after the event. Short survey and action steps are collected and shared with participants as a “Thank you” for attending.
A La Carte
Generate buzz and build momentum with a full media package.
Press release. Follow up interviews with Dinner guests to create an action plan, and digital surveys capture highlights and identify next steps.
Select Your Dish:
Individual interviews with team members
Strategic Action- SOAR visioning for large organizational or community wide groups
Networking World Cafe event
Survey and report generation
Select Your Course
SMALL PLATE
Great for team building, board engagement, or coalition building.
One event for up to 15 participants.
Select a Date and Time.
Book with 1 month advance notice.
Select one of our 5 predesigned Signature Topic Discussion Cards (“Dear White Parents,” “An Honest Letter from Sam,” “Caste - Chapter 3,” “If I had Sneeze,” “The Birmingham Letter”)
We send a facilitator to be on site to lead the event.
ENTREE
Perfect for pre-conference sessions, broad community engagement, and policy engagement.
Host 100- 500 small dinner tables for up to 4,000 guests.
We will train your local facilitators and send a team of 2-3 Lead Facilitators to be on site for the events.
We will custom curate your Dinner Discussion Card “menu” and design the overall “run of show” agenda.
Best for a large venue.
Book with 3 months advance notice.
Guests are contacted before and after the event. Short survey and action steps are collected and shared with participants as a “Thank you” for attending.
A LA CARTE
Generate buzz and build momentum with a full media package.
Press release. Follow up interviews with Dinner guests to create an action plan, and digital surveys capture highlights and identify next steps.
Select Your Dish:
Individual interviews with team members
Strategic Action- SOAR visioning for large organizational or community wide groups
Networking World Cafe event
Survey and report generation
Breaking Bread with Dr. Dietra
Dr. Dietra hosted her first dinner in New Haven just days after 9/11. What began as a small table of homemade pizza and shared stories grew into decades of intentional gatherings where healing, connection, and deep truth-telling take center stage.
Today, whether over Zoom or at a table set with Hello Fresh, Dr. D brings heart, presence, and over 20 years of facilitation experience to every meal. Her goal? To help people move from problem-solving to presence—and from isolation to collective action.
“If you’re ready to skip the politics and get to the stories that move people, I’ve got a seat saved for you. And maybe some dessert with ice cream.”
Let’s Make It Happen
Format Options:
🍴 In-Person: We help you host a dinner on-site or at a local venue
💻 Virtual: We lead the conversation via Zoom, while you share a meal remotely
Add-on: Pair with our Foundations Workshop or Leadership Cohort for deeper support
Group Size: 6–15 participants
Length: 90–120 minutes
Customization: Questions tailored to your org or context
Resources: Downloadable Conversation Guide included for internal use
What Dinner Guests Are Saying
Keith Murphy, Former Board Chair of NJ Cars Advisory Board (New Jersey Coalition for Recovery Support
“As NJ Cars Advisory Board began our work with Both And Partners, we wanted to be able to have conversations about the impact of race and how it shows up in recovery. “NJ Cars was a well-intentioned community with an overall lack of understanding of how racial oppression makes recovery inequitable.
We found that people experience racism and discrimination in a variety of ways and it was our intention to support and advocate for all people in recovery.
Before our work together, I felt alone as I tried to bring equity as a value to our organization.
Both And Partners had a clear, kind process, helping us to build bridges within our Board and to have difficult conversations around biases and systemic racism. We were able to proceed at a pace allowing everyone to feel included and be comfortable with the learning.
NJ Cars attended and hosted Both And’s workshop, Foundations of Racial Healing, throughout New Jersey and have developed our peer leadership around diversity, equity and inclusion. With Both And Partners support, we have hosted Equity Dinners for our membership.
Acknowledging there is more work to be done, with the support of Both And Partners, NJ Cars has brought equity as a value to our organization and we are committed to this important work.”
