Rhonda Fitzgerald

As the executive director for the Sustained Dialogue Institute (SDI), Rhonda Fitzgerald works to oversee the reach of the Sustained Dialogue model to campuses, workplaces, communities, and countries. Fitzgerald has been with SDI since 2008 and under her leadership, she grew the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network’s reach from higher education sites to workplaces, home country governments, and local communities.

Fitzgerald is a trained mediator and facilitator of multiple processes of restorative justice and intergroup dialogue. She has led over 10,000 hours of difficult dialogues between groups in conflict, especially using the formal Sustained Dialogue five-stage process about topics including race, hierarchy, ethnic mistrust, disability, religion, and resource and land conflicts. She now supports dialogue and conflict resolution with partners as diverse as technology companies, teaching hospitals, government agencies, foundations, prisons, nonprofits, and more. She co-built a partnership across Sudan, Sweden, Ethiopia, and Kenya, expanding the work of Sustained Dialogue through partners at the Life and Peace Institute. Fitzgerald is interested in the intersections of cross-cultural trust-building, community organizing, conflict management, and justice.