Through our Community Conversations series, The Texas Tribune hopes to catalyze constructive dialogues on various issues facing communities across Texas. This involves fostering spaces where community leaders, neighbors, local business officials and other stakeholders can connect with one another, share stories and broach possible solutions. We hope our toolkits will help you convene these conversations. Learn more.More in this series

Every year, we produce more than 60 free events that bring elected officials, community leaders and members of the public together on important policy discussions. Today, we’re proud to build on this tradition with new Community Conversation toolkits aimed at broadening these conversations in your communities. This involves helping Texans create spaces where community leaders, neighbors, businesspeople and others can connect with one another, share stories and discuss possible solutions.

Our first Community Conversation toolkit will focus on affordable housing. We’ve created a downloadable discussion guide to help you lead conversations and spark dialogue within your community and an interactive story that explains how two key factors that affect housing affordability — household income and the percent of that income spent on housing — play out across the state. You can enter your own ZIP code and see how affordability in your neighborhood compares to other Texas communities.

We’ll be building more of these kits in the coming months to coincide with Texas Tribune enterprise projects and events. We hope these toolkits will serve as a step-by-step guide to sparking meaningful conversation on issues faced by you and your community. Through Community Conversations, we hope to encourage the kind of dialogue that brings diverse perspectives to the table, forges more engaged and informed communities and connects Texans more deeply with our journalism.

Here are a few important guidelines to note before you host a Community Conversation:

Thanks in advance for your interest in hosting your own community conversation. We look forward to sharing your event with Texas Tribune readers — all we ask is that you report back to us on the outcome of your discussions. We may use your community’s feedback in our continued reporting and community engagement efforts.

Questions? We’d love to hear them. Email us at communityconversations@texastribune.org

 Learn about The Texas Tribune’s policies, including our partnership with The Trust Project to increase transparency in news.

Alex Samuels was a reporter for The Texas Tribune from 2017 to 2021. She helped with national campaign coverage, wrote stories about the intersection of race and politics in Texas, and covered the hottest...

Jessica Weaver worked on events from 2015 to 2021, rising from events manager to creative director for live events. She oversaw the organization’s year-round events portfolio and coordinated the annual...

Amanda Zamora led audience growth and engagement efforts at The Texas Tribune, where she worked from 2016 to 2019. A native Texan, Amanda spent 13 years on the East Coast working for news organizations...