Rob Corcoran (Photo: Karen Elliott Greisdorf)Rob Corcoran has facilitated dialogue, reconciliation and partnerships among diverse and polarized racial, ethnic, and religious groups in an array of locales in Europe, South Africa, India, Australia and the United States. He is the national director of Initiatives of Change and founder of Hope in the Cities, which models honest conversation and sustained partnerships across traditional boundaries. He has lived with his family in Richmond for 30 years.
Rob is available to:
- Speak at public forums
- Teach classes and lead discussions
- Facilitate workshops on community dialogue, healing racial history, and teambuilding.
September 16, 6:00-8:00pm, American University, Washington, DC The Trust Factor: How to Build and Sustain Trust Locally and Globally. Open to the public. Location: American University East Quad Building/Old SIS Lounge. Event flyer
August 4-10, Caux, Switzerland Rob Corcoran will speak and lead a workshop on the Trust Factor in Community Change during the week of Training by Initiatives of Change
June 2-4, Tulsa, OK
“Reconciliation in America: Moving Beyond Racial Violence”, national forum sponsored by The John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, Tulsa, OK
May 27, 5:30-7:00pm, Washington, D.C. Search for Common Ground will host a Trustbuilding book signing at their Washington office at 1601 Connecticut Avenue, 4th Floor. This event is open to the public. RSVP to (202) 265 5300. Event flyer.
May 22-23, Toronto, Canada Rob will launch Trustbuilding in Canada as the keynote speaker at the Initiatives of Change AGM in Toronto. He will also lead a workshop on ‘The Trust Factor in Community Change’. Event flyer.
May 11, Austin, TX Rob will meet with the ‘Texas after Violence group’ and faculty teaching the Difficult Dialogues curriculum at the University of Texas, Austin.
March 15, 5:30pm, Richmond, VA
Book launch event with Governor Tim Kaine at the Library of Virginia, Richmond
March 9, 9-10:30 am, Washington, DC
“Prospects for Racial Reconciliation”, the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Nitze Building , 1740 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC
Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility
by Rob Corcoran
Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility is part historical narrative and part handbook for a model of dialogue and community change that has been adopted both nationally and internationally. At its center is the story of how Richmond, Virginia, a former slave market and capital of the Confederacy, has become a seedbed for interracial dialogue and trustbuilding with national and international implications.
In 1993, this conservative southern city caught the attention of the nation with a public acknowledgment of its painful history and a call for "an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility." People of all backgrounds launched an unprecedented and sustained effort to address the "toxic issue of race." Known as Hope in the Cities, this endeavor is now in its second decade of work.Trustbuilding should extend its important mission by carrying Corcoran’s story to communities everywhere.
University of Virginia Press
312 pages
15 b&w illustrations
$29.95 cloth
To Order the Book:
Email orders
Download an order form
The book can also be ordered from Amazon books online:
United States
United Kingdom
and from national IofC centres
Listen to Rob's interview with Vanessa Womack about Trustbuilding Listen to Rob's interview with Ana Edwards about Trustbuilding
‘Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility’: public workshop in Caux
‘The most-needed reforms in our communities and nations require levels of political courage and trust-based collaboration that can only be achieved by individuals who have the vision, integrity, and persistence to call out the best in others and sustain deep and long-term efforts,’ said Rob Corcoran. He was speaking on Saturday afternoon at the Caux conference centre in Switzerland, launching his new book on Trustbuilding.
8 August 2010
From Tragedy to Triumph: Tulsa's Road to Reconciliation
Nearly ninety years after what has been described as the worst act of domestic terrorism in US history, Tulsa, OK, is starting to come to terms with its painful racial past and to “turn tragedy into a triumph of reconciliation.”
13 June 2010
Trustbuilding in Toronto and Washington
“I believe in Canada’s great role as a trustbuilder in a world that must deal with diversity as never before,” said Rob Corcoran, national director of Initiatives of Change USA, in his keynote address to the Annual General Meeting of Initiatives of Change Canada in Toronto.
7 June 2010
Why Not Make Richmond the Capital of Reconciliation?
asks Tom Silvestri, president and publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an April 25 commentary on Trustbuilding. Alluding to the recent furor over the Virginia Governor’s proclamation of Confederate History Month which failed to mention slavery, Silvestri writes...
25 April 2010
Trustbuilding book launched in Richmond
"You have written this book at a time of sharp polarization, characterized by deep divides,” said Tim Kaine the former governor of Virginia at the launch of Rob Corcoran’s book, Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility on March 15.
18 March 2010
Rob Corcoran Speaks at Johns Hopkins Forum
Rob Corcoran, author of Trustbuilding, spoke at the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University on March 9. He joined fellow panelists David Campt, a nationally recognized race relations consultant, and Jana Carter of Search for Common Ground to discuss "Conflict in Our Own Backyard: Prospects for Racial Reconciliation."
18 March 2010
New book on trustbuilding draws on the Richmond experience
"Hope in the Cities has provided a map for the future," says former Virginia governor Tim Kaine in his foreword to Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility, by Rob Corcoran, which is published this month by University of Virginia Press.
11 February 2010
Needed: A Revolution of Unselfishness>>
December 2009
Discovering the DNA of a Trustbuilder>>
June 2009
A new day for America - as seen from Richmond, Virginia>>
November 2008
A Panic-Proof Experience>>
October 2008
The Conversation that is Already Happening>>
March 2008
Trust is a Fragile Bridge That Must Be Built Each Day>>
June 2006
Repairing the Breach>>
September 2005
Challenge, Irritate, and Demolish: the Value of Teamwork>>
August 2004
To comment on the book or other material available on this page
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Praise for Trustbuilding
Using personal narrative and exhaustive reporting, Rob Corcoran chronicles how Hope in the Cities has moved what looked like an immoveable barricade. The job is not done, but Hope in the Cities has provided a map for the future.
From the foreword by Governor Tim Kaine
This is a soberly inspiring book about citizens who have struggled to find respectful and productive ways of relating through dialogue across the racial, social, and economic differences that dangerously divide us. It is sobering because they have tackled inwardly and outwardly one of the greatest threats to civilization's survival; inspiring because they have changed lives and communities. I pray fervently that the seeds they have sown will spread widely and deeply.
Harold H. Saunders, Chairman and President, International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, former Assistant Secretary of State
Rob Corcoran's Trustbuilding reaffirms the moral imperative inherent in racial reconciliation. We are each responsible for spanning the great chasms created by racist ideology, widened by racial oppression, and deepened by historical blindness. Corcoran urges us to engage one another, build bridges, and cross the remaining divides. He offers us examples of what is possible, and tools with which to begin our own work.
Hannibal B. Johnson, attorney, consultant, and author of Black Wall Street, Up from the Ashes, and Acres of Aspiration
What a fine, eloquent, needed book…30 years of work and witness in Richmond have produced a document both as convincing as it is wide-ranging …I find the scope and narrative qualities of the work very impressive indeed.
Donald Shriver, President Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary, New York
Trustbuilding is a visionary, compelling account of healing and change. Don't just read it; share it with others in your community and use it as a roadmap for personal and public transformation.
Martha McCoy, Executive Director, Everyday Democracy
Corcoran blends personal narrative with history, social science, ethics, and social reform. It is written with such clarity and with such skillful use of the first person that it will appeal to a wide audience, including the general public, but also to scholars, community organizers, group facilitators, people in non-profit organizations, particularly people interested in personal transformation and social justice.
John Moeser, Senior Fellow Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, University of Richmond
University of Virginia Press, February 2010