About Alan
In all of my trainings, workshops, and coaching, I aim to create an environment where participants are comfortable and confident enough to express deep vulnerability and courage, expression that is critical for deeper engagement across difference. In that spirit, I want to share a bit about how my life feeds into my civil discourse, advocacy, and civic engagement programs.
Alan Yarborough
One of the most rewarding things for me is making connections between others. I first appreciated this growing up in the mountains of North Carolina in a liberal town in a conservative county, constantly balancing a particular political tension. From there I received my undergraduate degree at Clemson University, a public school but one with a fairly conservative Christian student body. While at Clemson I helped lead an LGBT Christian small group, and also received a journalism internship in D.C. through the National Journalism Center funded by the Young America’s Foundation.
I deepened my interest in cross-culture bridge building through life overseas in Haiti and Central America, which helped me to see and better understand the cultural diversity across the U.S. I have most recently honed this skill in Washington, D.C., where I have helped connect people across the U.S. to their power as citizens including by building bridges with others.
Each training, workshop, and coaching session presents a fulfilling opportunity to help people make stronger connections whether through realizing something new among friends and acquaintances or building relationships across diversity with former strangers.
Since 2016, I have been immersed in bipartisan political advocacy through my role with The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations. In my role, I oversee Haiti, voting rights, and racial justice issues, develop resources for advocacy, and conduct trainings and workshops on effective advocacy strategies across the country. I was the primary content developer for “Make Me an Instrument of Peace,” an online civil discourse class, which has been used widely across The Episcopal Church and featured as a key resource in an initiative by Sojourners. I have trained thousands of folks from all walks of life, with a patchwork of identities, and have experience doing so in a variety of settings.
I have a BS in Economics from Clemson University (go Tigers!) and an MS in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Silver Spring, Maryland, is home.
I was a Better Arguments Ambassador for the Spring 2023 cohort with the Better Arguments Project, a collaboration by the Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program, Allstate, and Facing History and Ourselves. The Better Arguments Project is “a national civic initiative created to help bridge divides – not by papering over those divides but by helping people have better arguments.”
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