WORKSHOP A: Who’s at the Table? Lessons in Community Participation

Community participation is at the heart of community cafés—but what does participation really mean, and how do our choices influence it over time? In this interactive workshop, participants will explore a shared definition of community participation and examine how it shows up in day‑to‑day café operations, programs, and culture.

Using Taste Community Restaurant as a case study, we will take a retrospective look at participation rates and trends over time. Participants will learn about specific adjustments the café has made—such as changes in service model, outreach strategies, volunteer engagement, and guest experience—and how these shifts impacted who participated, how often, and in what ways.

The workshop will then turn outward, creating space for dialogue among attendees. Each café will be invited to reflect on their own participation goals and challenges, share strategies they are currently using to influence participation, and learn from peers across the Community Café network.

Participants will:

• Develop a working, values‑aligned definition of community participation

• Review real participation data and programmatic adjustments from Taste Community Restaurant

• Explore practical strategies cafés use to increase access, belonging, and engagement

• Share successes, challenges, and questions with fellow community café leaders

• Leave with ideas and tools to intentionally shape participation in their own café context

This session is designed for café leaders, staff, and board members who want to better understand participation—not just as a metric, but as a meaningful expression of community connection and impact.

FACILITATOR: Jeff Williams, Taste Project

WORKSHOP B: Why Donors Burn Out (and What That’s Telling Us)

Donor fatigue is often addressed with tactical fixes—fewer emails, clearer asks, better storytelling. While these practices can help alleviate immediate symptoms, they don’t always address the deeper reasons donors disengage over time. This workshop invites participants to look beneath the surface and explore the root causes of donor fatigue, both within individual organizations and across the broader nonprofit and community café ecosystem.

We will begin by briefly naming and reviewing common best practices used to avoid basic donor fatigue, such as cadence management, donor segmentation, transparency, and gratitude. From there, the workshop will shift into a deeper discussion about why fatigue emerges in the first place—examining issues like misaligned expectations, transactional relationships, lack of shared impact ownership, inconsistent messaging, and systemic pressures affecting both donors and organizations.

Through guided discussion, reflection prompts, and shared experience, participants will be encouraged to critically assess how their own fundraising models, narratives, and organizational culture may unintentionally contribute to donor fatigue. The session will emphasize donor relationships not simply as revenue streams, but as long‑term partnerships rooted in trust, meaning, and mutual sustainability.

Participants will:

• Identify common signs and surface‑level causes of donor fatigue

• Examine deeper relational, cultural, and systemic contributors to disengagement

• Reflect on how fundraising practices and organizational habits shape donor experience

• Share challenges and insights with peers across community cafés and nonprofits

• Leave with questions, frameworks, and ideas for addressing donor fatigue at its roots

This workshop is ideal for development staff, executive leaders, board members, and anyone involved in donor engagement who wants to move beyond short‑term fixes and towards healthier, more resilient donor relationships.

FACILITATOR: Julie Williams, One World Everybody Eats