Knight Foundation’s

Conversations on Free Expression

A National Listening Project

About the project
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is launching a set of projects to understand how people across the country are making sense of the First Amendment and free expression in their daily lives. This project focuses on small-group conversations in ten communities around the country, grounding free expression in the real experiences of everyday Americans.

Free expression means different things to different people. For some it calls to mind legal battles or political debates. But these conversations are spaces for personal stories, in everyday language, from people who don’t typically get asked.

Conversations will explore questions like:

• How do people understand free expression today in their own words?
• When and where do people feel most free to speak, and when do they hold back?
• How can free expression build trust, connection, and problem-solving in your community?

Cortico will listen carefully, working to surface insights about this core democratic value that can inform a shared understanding of the American experience today

Sign up here

Our Approach

Cortico, a national nonprofit dedicated to bringing underheard voices into public life, is leading this effort in partnership with Knight Foundation.

Cortico brings people together in recorded small-group conversations. Through a balance of human listening and technology, Cortico helps partners make sense of what they hear, surfacing patterns, themes, and insights across conversations while keeping real voices at the center. The result is a living record of what communities are saying in their own words.

Cortico has worked with 300+ partners across the country, in cooperation with MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication.

Why your organization

We’re looking for organizations that already bring people together and want to elevate voices from across their community. By joining this project, your community’s stories become part of a national record that will be used to understand free expression in this moment.

This work is taking place across ten communities where Knight Foundation is active:

What we’re asking

Nominate one person from your staff or community to be a paid conversation facilitator. (We train them fully, no prior experience needed.) Facilitators can expect to spend a total of 4–6 hours, including training and conversation time.

Help recruit 5–10 local residents from your network for 1–2 small-group conversations

Cortico handles everything else: training, technology, recording, analysis, and outputs.

Note on timeline: Facilitator orientation runs in early May, with conversations hosted through May and June. The full commitment wraps by the end of June.

What you & your community get

Beyond contributing your community’s voices to a national record on free expression, here’s what your participation includes:

• $200 per conversation for your facilitator
• $150 per participant who takes part
• Free facilitator training including practical skills your team keeps long after the project ends
• Ongoing access to the Cortico platform for your organization’s listening work
• A copy of the insights from your community’s own conversations
• Named credit in the final report and digital interactive archive

How to sign up & learn more

Sign up & nominate your facilitator here

Sign-up Deadline: May 1, 2026

Have questions first? Reach out anytime at programs@cortico.ai.

For Facilitators

What the conversations are actually like

Participants meet in small groups — usually 4–6 people — for about 90 minutes. As a trained facilitator from your community, you will learn to guide the conversation using open-ended questions. There’s no agenda to push and no right answers, but we’ll provide suggested conversation guides for best practices.

Conversations explore how people navigate everyday moments of speaking up or holding back — in their communities, at work, online, and at home. Topics are drawn from lived experience: when people feel comfortable speaking up, when they don’t, what shapes that, and why it matters. Conversations are recorded, but participants decide what they’re comfortable sharing.

Training Dates

• May 11th 3-4:30pm EST
• May 12th 12-1:30pm EST
• May 14th 6-7:30pm EST

Fund for Public Conversation Application Form Questions

Please fill out the following information about your project and we'll get back to you as soon as possible!

• Name
• Email
• Organization
• Website
• Organization Type
  --None--
  Community
  Coalition
  Library
  Media
  Educational Institution
  Government
  Foundation
  Corporation
  Community Member
  Other
• Please provide a summary of your intended project in 250-500 words
• Please list your top 3 goals for this project
• What is your current relationship with the community you would like to hear from?
• How will you share the learnings from your project?
• Anticipated start date
• Anticipated end date