The Empathy
Project

A structured six-week volunteering experience that pairs corporate employees with people from different cultures for one-on-one conversations. Four hours of real dialogue with someone you would never otherwise meet. Guided reflection that helps participants notice what the conversations raise and what might carry into work afterward.

Run by RW Institute in partnership with Acquaint and Inqli, the Empathy Project studies how structured cross-cultural dialogue can help empathy develop, move through organizations, and shape behavior over time. The longer-term ambition is scale, but the immediate focus is on learning from each cohort and building a durable model.

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Active Cohort

Fish & Richardson

By July 16, the active Fish & Richardson group had grown to approximately 20 participants and volunteers, with more conversations still ahead.

Onboarding Now

Dolby Labs

The next company cohort is moving through onboarding now, extending the program into another live corporate setting.

Growing Signal

More Cohorts in Setup

New company waves are still being organized, while the research questions, reflection flow, and shared operating dashboard continue to tighten.

How It Works

Six weeks. Four conversations. A structured chance to practice perspective.

Employees are matched with vetted participants from different cultures around the world through Acquaint, a nonprofit experienced in facilitating intercultural dialogue. Each conversation runs about an hour, guided by prompts designed to move past small talk into honest exchange, assumption-testing, and perspective-taking.

Between conversations, participants move through structured reflection prompts, and champion-led group sessions create space for collective sense-making. The full arc runs six weeks and asks for about six hours of time. The research questions, measurement approach, and governance model are still being shaped with partners.

Corporate cohort participation costs $35 per employee seat. Community volunteers can participate through Acquaint at no cost. The project is being designed to protect individual responses and share only approved aggregate learning with participating companies.

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1:1 Conversations

Four one-hour conversations with someone from a different culture. Guided prompts move the dialogue past pleasantries into real exchange.

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Guided Reflection

Structured reflection prompts and social learning help participants process what they experienced between conversations.

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Champion-Led Sessions

Group sessions led by trained champions create space for collective sense-making across each cohort.

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Measurement Design

Each cohort is designed to contribute anonymized aggregate learning about empathy development, behavioral practice, and intergroup contact. The goal is to learn what shifts, for whom, and under what conditions.

Partners

Who makes it work.

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RW Institute

Overall design, theory of change, champion model, and research governance. The architecture that holds everything together.

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Acquaint

The global conversation platform. Acquaint matches employees with vetted international partners and manages session protocols for cross-cultural dialogue.

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Inqli

The planned reflection and sense-making layer. Structured prompts, social learning, and qualitative learning designed to help participants process what shifts.

Current program partners

AcquaintInqli

Current Ways In

Three ways to continue the conversation.

Whether you want to volunteer, partner on research, or explore a company cohort, we will point you to the current next step.

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Volunteers

Conversations That Bridge Worlds

New volunteer intake is limited while current corporate cohorts are supported. Priority is being given to international conversation partners who can bring cross-cultural perspective to the exchange.

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Researchers

Research Briefing for Academic Partners

A virtual briefing on the proposed research architecture: what data may be collected, how multiple timepoints could work, and where governance questions still need partner input. We are looking for collaborators who want to help shape the right questions.

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Corporate Leaders

Corporate CSR Briefing

A virtual briefing for CSR and social impact leaders. We will walk through how the six-week experience works, what participation could involve, and what the current measurement design is intended to support.

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Research

The dataset that does not exist yet.

Most empathy research happens inside a single organization with a small sample and no control group. The Empathy Project is being designed to build a cross-company dataset at a scale the field has not had access to before. The current research questions are forming around three streams.

Complexity and Systems

How empathy signals may propagate through teams and organizations. Research conversations have included Dr. Kirsten Wright and the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation.

Behavioral Science

Enrollment nudges, drop-off mitigation, and what drives sustained prosocial behavior. In development with ideas42.

Volunteering Outcomes

Well-being, performance, retention, and volunteering identity. Academic partners in development.

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When Scheduled

Makerspace Salons

Empathy Project conversations may run as Salons when a session is confirmed. The Makerspace calendar is the source for upcoming dates.

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Makerspace Labs

Core Labs and Genome Labs

The structured working side of the Makerspace. Labs run on specific frameworks and produce real deliverables.

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Questions about the Empathy Project?

Whether you want to ask about future volunteer openings, partner on research, or bring the experience to your company, we would like to hear from you.

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