​September 29 · 60 minutes · Virtual via Zoom

​What is this?

​The Empathy Project connects global volunteers with employees from companies around the world for meaningful, one-on-one virtual conversations.

​You're the right person for this if...

​You work with, lead, or support a community of people who are ready to have real conversations with people they'd never otherwise meet. That might be a volunteer network, a diaspora organization, a university service-learning program, a community leadership initiative, or an international nonprofit. What you have is people — engaged, curious, and willing to show up. What you may not have is a clear channel for those people to connect meaningfully with the corporate world.

​This salon is for you.

​No commitment required. Come curious.

​What volunteers would actually be doing

​The Empathy Project matches global conversation partners with corporate employees for four one-hour video conversations over six weeks. The conversations are guided by prompts but not scripted. The goal is honest dialogue across difference — not performance, not small talk.

​Your role as an organizational partner is straightforward: tell us whether your network has people who'd want to participate, and roughly how many. Acquaint — our conversation platform partner — handles the rest: vetting, matching, scheduling, and ongoing support. You don't need to build infrastructure. You supply the people; we take it from there.

​There is no cost to participants or to your organization. The corporate side funds everything.

​What's in it for volunteers?

• ​Talk to people from around the world — from home

• ​Develop communication and cross-cultural skills that stand out on any CV

• ​Earn certificates and recognition for their contribution

• ​Be part of something with real scale: the project aims to generate one million hours of empathy work by the end of 2027

• ​Gain practical experience in intercultural dialogue and active listening

​Who can volunteer?

• ​Basic English communication skills

• ​Reliable internet access and a computer or smartphone

• ​18 years or older

• ​Available for four one-hour conversations over a few weeks

• ​Open to honest, respectful dialogue across difference

​The conversations go both ways. Conversation partners build the same skills, develop the same cross-cultural perspective, and their hours count toward the research dataset alongside the corporate employees they're paired with.

​How this fits the larger picture

​The Empathy Project's goal is one million hours of structured empathy work across 100,000 employees by end of 2027. That ambition is only possible if the supply side is ready — if partner organizations are willing to say "yes, we have people for this." Without that, the project doesn't run. With it, it becomes a mobilization at a scale the volunteering sector hasn't seen, feeding serious academic research into how empathy actually changes behavior across organizations and communities.

​This salon is 60 minutes. Come knowing your community — who they are, what motivates them, and whether this sounds like something they'd say yes to. We'll handle the details together.

​About The Empathy Project One Million Hours of Empathy is a six-week corporate volunteering program connecting employees with vetted global conversation partners for structured, cross-cultural dialogue. $35 per seat, all-inclusive. Strict anonymity. Research-grade measurement. empathy-project.lovable.app

​About the RW Institute The RW Institute designs and validates transformative volunteering experiences grounded in behavioral science and intergroup contact theory. For the Empathy Project, RWI leads program design, research governance, and the champion model that makes large-scale rollout possible.

​About Acquaint Acquaint is a nonprofit intercultural conversation platform that has facilitated over 15,000 hours of one-on-one conversations across cultures since 2021. For the Empathy Project, Acquaint manages conversation partner matching, vetting, scheduling, and platform support. acquaint.org

​About Inqli Inqli is the reflection and sense-making environment built into the Empathy Project. Through structured prompts and guided social learning, Inqli helps participants turn individual conversations into lasting insight — and generates the qualitative data layer that makes the research meaningful. inqli.com