The partners
Who they are and what they lead in the cohort.
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Convener & Strategy Hub
Utah Advocacy CoalitionUAC
Utah Advocacy Coalition connects family-serving organizations across Utah’s care system to build nonpartisan, community-driven solutions that bridge policy, practice, and lived experience. In the cohort, Utah Advocacy Coalition shapes the arc of the eight sessions, brings the curriculum together, and invites guest presenters.
Visit utahadvocacy.org ↗“Too often, the stories we tell to raise money ask people to pity each other. They cast the people being helped as victims and the people giving as heroes. One side loses dignity, the other loses humility, and the community ends up further apart.”
Alyssa DeHart, CEO and Founder, Utah Advocacy Coalition -
Experiential Civic Leadership
The Other Side Leadership InstituteTOSLI
The Other Side Leadership Institute develops leaders through responsibility, accountability, and relationship, grounded in lived experience at The Other Side Village. In the cohort, The Other Side Leadership Institute leads the session on radical accountability.
Visit theothersidevillage.com ↗“We spend enormous resources managing human problems, yet far too little investing in human possibility. What changes when we stop defining people by their deficits and start investing in their capacity, dignity, purpose, and potential? Human potential is the most important asset we can invest in.”
Preston Cochrane, CEO, The Other Side Village -
Communication & Cultural Frameworks
Dignity.Us
Dignity.Us gives people a practical way to understand what happens in hard conversations, and to choose dignity when disagreement gets difficult. In the cohort, Dignity.Us leads the opening session on dignity, and its facilitators, trained by Dignity.Us, lead the table work.
Visit dignity.us ↗“More than ever before, we need leaders who can build communities where everyone’s dignity is honored; where seemingly intractable problems become solvable through deep and difficult conversations that look beyond finding common ground, and instead find higher ground; where trust is built and lives improved, all on the foundation of dignity.”
Tami Pyfer, COO, Dignity.Us
Each organization sees leadership from a different angle. In the cohort, you’ll get all three — and leave with a clearer sense of how they fit together in your own work.
After the cohort, you can bring a full partner program into your organization (Dignity.Us or another lab that fits).
The eight sessions
Every other week at The Other Side Village, starting in early 2027.
- The format
Each session runs 3.5 hours. It opens with a focused talk, then moves into table work on your own organization, guided by facilitators trained by Dignity.Us.
- Across all eight
UAC shapes the arc of the sessions, brings the curriculum together, and invites guest presenters.
- The program
The sessions are grouped around three kinds of investment: in people, in relationships, and in organizations. The cohort ends with graduation.
The program
What we’ll cover, session by session.
This is the draft program, so details may still shift. We’ll share session dates with the cohort.
Human Capital
Investable Humans
“Our people are our greatest asset.”
The Investable Human
Dignity Index · Dignity In Action
Core premise: people are investable. We will undo the unconscious bigotry of low expectations. Pity vs. partnership. What genuine investment in people looks like. Introduction to the Dignity Index and Radical Accountability.
Deep dive into the Dignity Index framework. How dignity shows up (and is violated) in leadership. Small group practice with real scenarios.
ACTIVITY: Human Connection Valuation
Social Responsibility
Radical Accountability
What social responsibility looks like on individual, organizational, community levels.
What accountability looks like when understood through the lens of shared humanity that produces results vs. shame. How to build an extraordinary culture of peer accountability with imperfect people for accountability in ways people actually respond to.
Social Capital
Investable Relationships
“The return on our investments lies in the strength of our relationships.”
Emotions as Information
Emotion-informed framework applied with a hands-on approach. Using emotional data to understand bias, identity, and motivation without being ruled by it.
Strength In Healing
The Other Side Leadership Institute Village framework. Understanding how unresolved trauma and unsupported needs trigger destructive cycles — and how leaders can interrupt them.
Recognizing strengths over weaknesses. Understanding the dual role of challenge and benefit in individual and organizational life. Approaching differences with curiosity and an asset-based framework. Utah Advocacy Coalition.
Bridge Building
Bridge Building. Culture Building. Community Building.
Duality. Curiosity. The Art of Giving. POEM: I Am Money.
Financial Capital
Investable Organizations
“Our monetary investments are a reflection of our social, cultural, and civic values.”
Financial Literacy
Financial Literacy for Leaders: how funders think, how to seek funding, how to give grants. Nonprofits and businesses as complementary capital partners. The power of social enterprises.
Impact Investing
Impact Investing: putting money into companies, organizations, or funds to make a financial profit while also creating a positive, measurable change for society or the environment
Graduation
Ambassador Launch
Cohort graduation. Each participant presents their commitment to the community.
Network activation. Pathway to next cohort or leadership role.
November 3, 2026 · Salt Lake City
Be in the room where it begins.
Leaders from all three partners open the Lab over lunch on November 3, 2026, at the Zions Bank Founder’s Room.
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Keynote
Dr. Timothy Shriver
University of Utah Impact ScholarCo-Founder & CEO, Dignity.Us
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Keynote
Dr. Jody Olsen
Former Director, Peace CorpsUAC Advisory Board
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Featured speaker
Preston Cochrane
CEO, The Other Side VillageRepresenting The Other Side Leadership Institute
Dr. Timothy Shriver joins us through the University of Utah and the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
Leadership, learned together.
Hosted by
Dignity.UsThe Other Side Leadership InstituteUtah Advocacy Coalition
Contact
Questions about IHLab?
Reach Alyssa DeHart at Utah Advocacy Coalition.
alyssa.dehart@utahadvocacycoalition.orgBe first to know.
We’ll send news about the launch and let you know when Cohort I registration opens in December 2026.