The Conversation Project
- Boston, MA
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We are here to reimagine...
a cultural transformation to shift from not talking about dying to talking about it by making it easier to initiate conversations and to encourage people to talk now, and often, so that their wishes for care are known when the time comes.
Our Story
The Conversation Project®, a public engagement initiative, began in 2010, when Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ellen Goodman and a group of colleagues & concerned media, clergy, and medical professionals gathered to share stories of deaths of those who mattered most to them. Goodman founded the nonprofit after serving as caregiver to her mother with Alzheimer’s disease for many years. She & her moth...
The Conversation Project®, a public engagement initiative, began in 2010, when Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ellen Goodman and a group of colleagues & concerned media, clergy, and medical professionals gathered to share stories of deaths of those who mattered most to them. Goodman founded the nonprofit after serving as caregiver to her mother with Alzheimer’s disease for many years. She & her mother had never discussed end-of-life care, but in the end the care decisions fell to Ellen. “I realized only after her death how much easier it would have all been if I heard her voice in my ear as these decisions had to be made,” she recalls. A vision emerged for a grassroots public campaign that would change our culture to have every person’s wishes for care through the end of life understood and respected. We offer free tools, guidance, and resources to jump start conversations.
The Conversation Project®, a public engagement initiative, began in 2010, when Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ellen Goodman and a group of colleagues & concerned media, clergy, and medical professionals gathered to share stories of deaths of those who mattered most to them. Goodman founded the nonprofit after serving as caregiver to her mother with Alzheimer’s disease for many years. She & her mother had never discussed end-of-life care, but in the end the care decisions fell to Ellen. “I realized only after her death how much easier it would have all been if I heard her voice in my ear as these decisions had to be made,” she recalls. A vision emerged for a grassroots public campaign that would change our culture to have every person’s wishes for care through the end of life understood and respected. We offer free tools, guidance, and resources to jump start conversations.
Our Community Resources
Conversation Starter Guides (multiple languages)
Conversation Starter Guides are tools to help you have a conversation with those who matter to you about your, or their, wishes regarding care through the end of life.
Ritual and Grief in the time of COVID-19
A thoughtful piece about the preservation of rituals in the midst of COVID-19, discussing how to creatively sustain and honor rituals in today’s global climate.
