Vision
A world grounded in care for people, care for the earth, and shared prosperity.
Mission
CJ Connections offers a grounded, practice-centered approach to partnership as an everyday alternative to domination-based patterns rooted in fear, hierarchy, and control.
We help people respond to this moment in ways that strengthen connection, restore trust, and support shared well-being.
About CJ
I’m Cherri Jacobs (CJ) Pruitt, founder of CJ Connections. For more than 35 years, I've helped individuals, organizations, and communities strengthen relationships, improve systems, and create meaningful 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 growing up in one of the few Jewish families in our neighborhood, I learned early that people do not all experience the world in the same way. Those experiences continue to inform how I think about relationships, inclusion, and the systems that influence our everyday lives.
Throughout my career, I've worked across education, healthcare, public service, nonprofit organizations, and community leadership at the local, state, regional, and federal levels.
Across each of those experiences, I found myself drawn to the same questions:
● What helps people and relationships thrive?
● How do we create environments where people feel valued and
respected?
●What helps organizations and communities work together toward shared goals?
●How do we create lasting change rather than simply reacting to today's challenges?
Those questions continue to guide my work today.
In 2007, I discovered a framework that gave me a deeper understanding—and language to describe—the patterns I had been observing throughout my life and career: Dr. Riane Eisler's Cultural Transformation Theory. Her domination-partnership social lens reinforced my belief that healthier relationships, organizations, and communities are built intentionally through everyday choices
and practices.
CJ Connections brings together these experiences through workshops, discussion groups, speaking engagements, and consulting designed to help people recognize the patterns shaping our lives and replace domination-based patterns with partnership-based ways of living and working.
On the Thoughtful Use of AI
At CJ Connections, we use artificial intelligence as a reflective and drafting partner in developing written materials.
Technology is used intentionally and in service of connection.
