Vision
A world grounded in care for people, care for the earth, and shared prosperity.
Mission
CJ Connections helps organizations, communities and individuals recognize and replace domination-based patterns rooted in fear, hierarchy, and control with partnership-based ways of living and working rooted in care, shared responsibility, mutual respect, and connection.
Through consulting and facilitation, workshops and trainings, and speaking engagements, we help put partnership intro practice to create healthier healthier relationships, organizations, and communities.
About CJ
I’m Cherri Jacobs (CJ) Pruitt, founder of CJ Connections. For more than 35 years, I've worked across public health, health care, public service, community leadership, and systems change.
Growing up with a mother who was deaf, a father who used a wheelchair after a spinal tumor left him paralyzed in his twenties, and as a member of one of the few Jewish families in our neighborhood, I saw early how differently people experience the world. I began to see how the conditions around us - including our systems, institutions, cultural expectations and narratives - shape the ways people are connected, respected, and able to fully thrive.
Over more than 35 years, I've continued to deepen my understanding of these dynamics in systems at the local, state, regional, and national levels. My experience includes 20 years as a federal Maternal and Child Health consultant and project officer, policy work with Colorado's Primary Care Association, direct service in community health centers and other fedeally funded programs, and extensive facilitation, training, technical assistance, and resource development.
Across each of those experiences, I found myself drawn to the same questions:
● How do we create systems that support lasting, meaningful change?
● What helps organizations and communities work together toward shared goals?
●How do we create environments where people feel valued and respected?
●What helps people and relationships thrive?
Those questions continue to guide my work today.
In 2007, I discovered Dr. Riane Eisler's Cultural Transformation Theory. Her domination-partnership social lens gave me an accessble way to understand how deeply rooted patterns shape our systems, organizations, communities, and everyday lives. The research, tools, and partnership-based practices that are spreading across the world now form a major foundation of CJ Connections - helping leaders and communities recognize the patterns that hold change back and identify practical alternatives that support healthier organizations, communities, and systems.
