Thank you for completing our survey. Here are some highlights and our responses.

Practice Groups

Overall, people seem satisfied with the practice groups. Some people asked for more structure and more explanation of how to do this in everyday life.

  • More structure: some of you expressed wanting to work through the NVC Companion Workbook developed by Lucy Leu. This book accompanies Marshall’s book, “Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Life.” If you are interested in running a practice group with this focus, we can help you connect with others looking for this and give some guidance on how to get started and how others structure these types of groups. As they are structured in a way that can be peer led they have the advantage of being offered for free, which a couple people mentioned as an important factor.
  • The workshop setting is perfect for taking risks and asking for what you need. This not only contributes to your learning, but for learning for the whole group.
  • The practice groups are currently set up as Empathy circles for a number of reasons:
    • It allows for immediate participation, regardless of your level of experience in NVC and offers a learning place to practice and witness the art of empathy.
    • NVC is very rich and while many “concepts” can be learned, ultimately in our experience it comes down to a deep understanding of empathy. We want to offer this basic and important skill regularly and empathy circles are a way that has worked well around the country.
    • To develop structured exercises takes time and energy that either would require us to divert time and resources from our livelihoods or other important activities or would impact what we charge for the practice groups. We want to both make this a regular practice that is easeful (draws on our experience and training, but does not require hours of exercise development/planning) and that is cost-effective for you.
    • We want to make space available for people to receive empathy. Empathy is the fuel we need to work with our own reactions to others and live in harmony with our values. Without this “empathic oxygen” the rest of NVC will be difficult to practice. Empathy helps us “embody” the principles and aspirations of NVC.

    Cost

  • As NVC facilitators we have each invested our resources heavily in our own NVC education. We’ve done this because we value NVC. We want you to value NVC, too, and support us in sharing and learning.
    • Some of you expressed that sometimes money gets in the way of your seeking NVC.
      • For those of you with this issue, we encourage you to consider holding your own practice group or gathering to share NVC community. We are blessed to have one another and a lively community through the various programs we’ve been involved in and we really value these connections.
      • A few people said NVC trainings and practice groups “should be free.” We see “free” as one strategy among many. While we wish it weren’t true, many studies point to how people tend to discount or discredit offerings that are free.. When we’ve offered things for free, typically half the people who sign up don’t attend. Less than 10% of those people notify us that they won’t be coming. This gets very costly in terms of venues, time spent preparing registrations and planning exercises. We struggle to find a way to offer things that meets people’s budgets and still allows us some predictability and a sense that people value this work.
      • Scholarships – we offer partial scholarships for most of our events and have a form on our website for this purpose. We want programs to be accessible to you – please use this form if you need it.

      What gets in the way of attending NVC events?

    These were the top responses:

    • Other priorities
    • Overwhelmed by personal schedule
    • Location and parking

Location

A few of you expressed a preference for commercial rental space rather that us hosting events in our homes. Overall many of you were satisfied with venues, especially when they offer parking.

  • Having the practice groups and smaller events at our homes allows for a great deal of ease and flexibility. We’ve collectively spent many hours seeking out venues to host NVC events in the Boston area. We have not had luck finding locations that are cost-effective, have parking, T accessibility and calendar availability.. If you know of a space that offers a low cost, has parking and is T-accessible please let us know. Having public events at private residences requires special insurance and so even though it seems there may be no “cost” for us, we indeed incur expenses and open our homes up to potential damage, issues, etc.
  • Because attendance varies wildly, it’s not easy to predict the amount of space we’ll need and if we’ll be able to cover the venue costs with attendance. In some respects it creates ease to host events at our own homes so that we can still offer the group even if the size would not cover the rental space of a location.
  • About 70% of people sign up a few days before an event begins. This makes it a challenge to predict attendance and secure ample space. (If you can sign up in advance, it greatly contributes to us. We offer a 10% discount to encourage early registration!)
  • We have been lucky to use the Whole Foods on River St in Cambridge space for some events. The room has limited availability. We will be offering free introductions there once a month for the next four months.
  • If there are reasons, other than parking, that you do not want to come to a facilitator’s house for practice, please let us know. In Cambridge, we offer the possibility of a temporary parking permit for the time of the event.
  • Some of you are from out of the area. We know people who have started their own practice groups. Can we help you get your own started? We may be able to come out and assist from time to time to support the group.

We hope you share our eagerness for community and learning and will join us as, all together, we “re-launch” NVC Boston!

Warmly,

Gail, Pat and Bonnie