Upcoming Events!

Cozy Juicy Real is a game designed to create fun, connective, and engaging interactions. During this event you'll get to play and experience Cozy Juicy Real while connecting with other facilitators in our Facilitator Cards community and around the world.

The goal of this event is three fold. To introduce facilitators to a new tool they might use or be inspired by to use with future groups. To connect to new people and facilitators and have fun with each other as a community. And to stretch out minds to what is possible in terms of engaging and fun interactions online.

This session will be highly participatory and engaging so be ready to play! The main part of the event will go 90 minutes with 30 minutes for more time to debrief, keep connecting, ask questions of the developers/designers of Cozy Juicy Real. 

**You MUST be able to stay for a full 90 minutes to attend the event!**

Want to learn more about Cozy, Juicy, Real? Check out a quick video on the game here: 

https://www.cozyjuicyreal.com/how-to-play/

Play Cozy Juicy Real with the Facilitator Cards Community!

Ever found yourself wondering, how do I run a better meeting? How do I make it so that people will actually participate when I ask questions? How can I make bringing people together more interactive and engaging, especially when we're online?

If you've ever been nervous about getting people to participate, the solution you're looking for, is facilitation. Facilitation is the skill of making things easier. Making it easier for people to talk, interact, share, disagree, come up with ideas, make decisions. 

In this 1 hour workshop we're going to dive into what is facilitation, how can you start thinking like a facilitator, and you'll leave with some concrete ways to improve the very next thing you facilitate.

This session is designed for those who aren't "facilitators" but who continuously find themselves organizing meetings or even leading trainings and workshops and want to improve their skills in those moments.

The Secret to Participation (is Facilitation)

On the last Monday of every month we host Card Sharks, a getting-started session focused on getting to play/explore/practice with your Facilitator Cards.

This event is exclusively for those who are Card Carrying Facilitators (get it!?) and you'll need to bring your deck when you participate! It's a great chance to connect with other facilitators, deepen your knowledge around your deck, and practice using Facilitator Cards to build agendas on the fly.

Bring queries, questions, or even an unopened box of Facilitator Cards and we'll jump in! Questions? Let us know at 

October Card Sharks | Facilitator Cards

Have you ever had something happen in facilitation that completely threw you off? Sent you into an emotional spiral or took over your mind making you no longer present for your group? Have you ever reacted to a participant, rolling your eyes in disbelief or saying something you later regretted?

If so, you've probably experienced being triggered as a facilitator. As facilitators, we're in a uniquely tricky position being responsible for holding the space for the emotional well-being of a group while having our own emotions and realities to navigate.

This November Brain Jam is all about how we can navigate our triggers as facilitators.

 What are the different strategies we can use both before we get in the room and in the moment to better respond when triggers arise?

This session will be led by Meg Bolger, head of Facilitator Cards, and co-author of Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation.

Meg started doing social justice education and facilitation over a decade ago and knows how destructive it can be to not navigate your triggers well as a facilitator. Having spent many years running train-the-trainers and working with facilitators to level up their skills, Meg has had a lot of opportunities to hone in on how we as facilitators can navigate those moments successfully, to come back to being fully present with our groups, and respond rather than react to our participants.

In Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation, Meg and her co-author Sam devoted an entire chapter to understanding what happens when we get triggered (using Dr. Kathy Obears Triggering Events Cycle) and exploring the different options we have when that happens to us in a facilitation.

This Brain Jam will take place in 60/60 format which means the first hour will be devoted to understanding the two models that can help us break down what happens when we're triggered and the other for what options we have available to us when we get triggered.

The second hour is going to be time for deeper questions, conversations, and connections and is totally optional.

This session is designed specifically for folks who run and lead workshops, meetings, and trainings who want to learn how to stay present with their group when triggers arise.

We're going to be offering this Brain Jam in the gift. Which means that there will be no fee to register. After the event, participants will be provided with a link to make a contribution towards the event. If you do not have the funds to make a contribution, the event is free! If you want to make a contribution, you'll be given the opportunity to do so at the end of the event.

November Brain Jam: Navigating Triggers for Facilitators

Card Sharks is our getting-started session focused on getting to play/explore/practice with your Facilitator Cards.

Whether you've never opened your deck or you've been using it to plan and adapt most of your sessions, this is a great chance to deepen your facilitation knowledge, increase your creative capacities, and connect with other facilitators from around the world.

This event is exclusively for those who are Card Carrying Facilitators (get it!?) and you'll need to bring your deck when you participate!

Bring queries, questions, and we'll jump in! Questions? Let us know at 

November Card Sharks | Facilitator Cards

At our November Brain Jam we talked about understanding what happens when we get triggered, different strategies we can use in those moments to come back to being present, and how having plug-and-play strategies can be key to creating calm in those instances. This event, exclusive to our Facilitator Card Carrying community, is to delve deeper into those specific scenarios and focuses on build specific card sequences we can use.

If you don’t feel like you encounter being triggered when you facilitate, or if you are someone who encounters similar challenging moments over and over again during facilitations, this event will be great for you too! Whether it’s a participant who keeps taking over a meeting, pulling rank in a conversation, or when someone disagrees with the agenda, we’ll be able to come up with a specific strategy for that moment together.

​This session will be led by Meg Bolger, head of Facilitator Cards, and co-author of Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation.

​Meg started doing social justice education and facilitation over a decade ago and knows how destructive it can be to not navigate your triggers well as a facilitator. Having spent many years running train-the-trainers and working with facilitators to level up their skills, Meg has had a lot of opportunities to hone in on how we as facilitators can navigate those moments successfully, to come back to being fully present with our groups, and respond rather than react to our participants.

​In Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation, Meg and her co-author Sam devoted an entire chapter to understanding what happens when we get triggered (using Dr. Kathy Obears Triggering Events Cycle) and exploring the different options we have when that happens to us in a facilitation.

​This event will be 90 minutes long, please come with your Facilitator Cards! This event will be highly interactive, so it won't be a good event to multitask :). 

This event is offered in the gift which means there is no fee to register nor payment required. After the event, you'll be given the option to make a contribution to the fund if you can and want to. All proceeds and contributions from this event will go to the DEAL ME IN scholarship fund which provides Facilitator Cards to low-resourced teachers and students. 

​Questions? Comments? Concerns? Triggered by the word trigger?

Card Carrier Exclusive: How To Navigate Triggers using Facilitator Cards

This intensive is a one-day deep dive into facilitation where we will explore what is facilitation and more importantly, how we can tackle some of the most common and most challenging scenarios we face as facilitators. Walk away with specific tactics and techniques to improve your future facilitations, while building confidence to flex your plan to meet your group in the moment.

, a professional facilitation geek and co-founder of 

. Meg has been helping people learn and skill up their facilitation for more than a decade. Meg is the co-authored Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation, co-founded FacilitatingXYZ, and for the last year has been helping facilitators all around the world improve their meetings, trainings, and workshops with Facilitator Cards.

This session is a session for new, seasoned, and aspiring facilitators designed specifically to enhance our practice as facilitators and deepen our abilities to use Facilitator Cards to plan, problem-solve, and improve our sessions.

The intensive will be 6 hours with a one-hour meal break in the middle.

This intensive is limited to 12 people to ensure it is a highly personalized experience where participants get to know, grow, and connect with other facilitators.

 and markers. If you already have a deck, you can choose to get an extra deck to give away OR we can donate your deck to an educator who cannot afford them on your behalf.

 individual. This training is personalized and every person needs to be on their own computer and registered individually for it to work. You're a facilitator, you understand 🤓 . 

This session is Dec 7th. If this timezone or date does not work for you but you are interested please fill out this short form! 

We know we have a lot of folks in Europe and Australia and if we have enough interest will run future sessions with those timezones in mind!

I have a deck of Facilitator Cards already, can you send it to a friend instead of me?

Yep! Just submit their mailing address (and be sure to include their name and email) in your registration form.

I want to come but can't afford the ticket price, are there scholarships or other options available?

 and she'll be happy to work with you directly to work it out.

The intensive is designed for you to be present for all 6 hours (minus the meal break). If you can't be present for all 6 hours, drop us an email to learn about what you'll miss.

What do I need to have with me to attend?

Just you, your Facilitator Cards, and your fantastic brain!

Possibly! It depends on the size of your group. Please reach out to us directly at 

If you register for this event and need to cancel for any reason here are your options! 

In all cases, you get to keep your Facilitator Cards + Markers

 as those will be sent to you immediately upon registration.

1 Day Facilitation Intensive w/ Facilitator Cards

What are Facilitator Cards? Why are they our favorite facilitation tool that we've ever created or used and how can they help you be a more creative, agile, fast-thinking facilitator?

Those are the questions that will guide our December Brain Jam.

Whether you've never heard of Facilitator Cards before or you've got yourself a deck and are learning to have a guided exploration of your new deck, this is the event for you.

You are NOT required to have a deck for this session, while we will be working with and using Facilitator Cards it's going to be entirely online and available to everyone!

This Brain Jam will take place in 60/60 format which means the first hour will be devoted to understanding what Facilitator Cards are, best practices, and going over some of our favorite ways to use them as well as a chance to use them to think fast on your feet!

We offer our Brain Jams in the gift. Which means that there will be no fee to register. After the event, participants will be provided with a link to make a contribution towards the event. If you do not have the funds to make a contribution, the event is free! If you want to make a contribution, you get to do that at the amount that feels good to you.

December Brain Jam: Think Fast With Facilitator Cards

For the past 5 years Meg (Captain of Facilitator Cards) has been doing a year-end-review to take a look back at the past year of being a self-employed, solopreneur, small business owner type person and assess, 

Versions of these questions and specific prompts attached will be the heart of this session.

This event will be a guided self-reflection where Meg will hold space and offer reflection prompts and exercises for you to reflect on the year that's just passed. While there will be some opportunities for interaction at the beginning and end, the majority of this session will be spent in solo reflection on our own work, businesses, and lives.

While this session could easily take up a half or full-day Meg is aimed at creating a one-hour session that will allow for deep reflection and introspection on the year, which can serve as both a jumping-off point and self-contained time to reflect.

This will be a one-hour session hosted on Zoom. This session will be most valuable if you're able to be fully present, put your notifications aside, and dig into the past.

We'll invite you to bring your journal, calendar, notebooks, etc. to the session so you have those handy to flip through.

Unlike many other sessions we run at Facilitator Cards, this will not be highly interactive between participants but will be a highly participatory solo reflection space.

This event is offered in the gift. This means that there will be no fee to register and after you'll be provided with a link to make a contribution towards the event if you choose to. If you do not have the funds to make a contribution, the event is our gift to you! If you want to make a contribution, you get to do that at the amount that feels good to you.

A Meditation on Your Year: A guided year-end-review with Meg

The Playground is THE place to try, test, and experience different Facilitator Cards. 

As facilitators, we rarely get to try out new things in safe spaces where we can see how they work, understand timing, and get meaningful feedback from people who know what they’re doing! That’s what this space is created for. It’s a place to learn new processes, test things out, and get to put on our participant hats for a while and be reminded what it’s like to be a participant.

If you’ve ever wondered “would this process work for this question/goal?” this is the place to find out. If you just want to be a participant and get to observe and learn from other facilitators, we need you too!

Come play with us on The Playground! These sessions are totally free and limited to 25 people, so snag your spot now.

No requirement to facilitate, come be a participant with us :)

Participants who have decks are encouraged to bring them, but it is not required to have a deck in order to be a participant.

Nope! The Playground is designed to be a space to facilitate or participate.

What if I want to facilitate but am not sure exactly what?

All good! Register, tell us about what you want to facilitate or your initial ideas and Meg will be in touch to help you sort the details :).

Because this session is only 60 minutes long, if you cannot arrive within the first five minutes we ask that you attend the next one.

Do I need to sign-up to get the recording?

Nope! If you do not plan to attend but would like the recording, we recommend subscribing to our 

! We post all of our event recordings there.

Highly participatory! Everyone in the session will either be an active participant or a facilitator during the entirety of the event.

Also, the norm in our events is to have your camera on. It's totally fine if you want to remain off-camera if you are only participating (those who plan to facilitate will be on camera during their facilitations), however, since this is a participatory event we do ask that you not purposefully try to multi-task/split your attention during the event.

The Facilitator Cards Playground

Many of us want to be more creative, adventurous, and spontaneous in our virtual facilitation. 🤔💭 What stands in the way is that it’s often hard to build up ease and fluidity with the technology so that we can be flexible and even out of the box with our thinking of how to use it. 

This session is going to be all about getting to know the Butter platform so that we can know its capacities, how we can use it, and even how we can hack what is there to make it work for us. 💪 You’ll get to experience all the different ways you can use Butter as a facilitator and brainstorm the creative possibilities that opens up with facilitators from around the world! 💛

In this ButterMixer we’ll learn about: 

🧈 How facilitating on Butter is different from Zoom facilitation (and what you need to know before you’re first Butter facilitation)

🛠 How to hack queue, private notebook, chat, and spotlight features to solve facilitation problems

🙃 How combining preset agenda pieces and on-the-fly creative ideas can lead to a dynamic and fun experience for your participants

Meg Bolger is a professional facilitation geek and captain of 

. Facilitator Cards, a deck of 60 processing tools for facilitators, the pocket-size activity library used by facilitators around the world. Before Facilitator Cards Meg spent many years facilitating social justice education, and creating facilitation resources like 

Meg loves dissecting the inner workings of facilitation with both new and seasoned facilitators, geeking out on new virtual connection and organization technologies, and sharing her learning with others.

For the smoothest experience, do join using

. Since we're usually using Miro in our workshops, 

we recommend joining in with your ad blockers turned off (temporarily) and not in incognito mode

Tips & Tricks for Smooth Butter Facilitation

January | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

This Brain Jam is focused on Mmhmm, a software that allows you to manipulate your virtual camera whether you're facilitating in Zoom or any other online platform. No more screen shares! Bring your slides directly into your window and have more fun when you're facilitating (or presenting!) virtually.

This Brain Jam will take place in 60/60 format which means the first hour will be devoted to understanding Mmhmm, building in the interface, and getting to play around with the features with other facilitators!

The second hour is going to be time for deeper exploration, questions, and conversations. If you can't make it to the second hour that's totally fine!

(it's totally free for the first 14 days of use!)

We offer our Brain Jams in the gift. Which means that there will be no fee to register. After the event, participants will be provided with a link to make a contribution towards the event. If you do not have the funds to make a contribution, the event is our gift to you!

*This event is not sponsored by mmhmm! We just think it's a really cool software and we're excited to explore it with our community!

February Brain Jam: How To Use mmhmm To Improve Virtual Presentations

February | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

What are the foundations of good facilitation?

When facilitation feels so nebulous sometimes, how can we identify what specific core essentials of facilitation helps your groups succeed, no matter what you facilitate?

In this workshop, we'll be exploring these questions in a collaborative, experimental session where we'll learn on two levels.

The first is that we'll learn through the insights and ideas we come up with as a group. 

The second way is we'll learn through the processes and structure of the workshop itself meta-lessons that we can take away and apply to our own workshops.

Led by Meg Bolger of Facilitator Cards, this session will be an experiment in where the collective wisdom of the group will take us and what we can learn and distill about facilitation together.

Due to the short nature of this workshop and the way it will be shaped and created by the group, the (virtual) doors to the workshop will close after 5 minutes and late arrivals will not be able to join.

The recording, however, will be posted on our 

 after the event where you'll be able to view it if you were not in attendance.

Foundations Of Facilitation

The Playground is the place to try, test, and experience different Facilitator Cards. 

As facilitators, we rarely get to try out new things in safe spaces where we can see how they work, understand timing, and get meaningful feedback from people who know what they’re doing! That’s what this space is created for. It’s a place to learn new processes, see folks things out, and get to put on our participant hats for a while and be reminded what it’s like to be a participant.

This month Meg will be leading 1-2 Facilitator Cards (chosen by you!) and the group will share feedback, insights, and ideas for iterating or improving the processes.

Due to the short nature of this workshop and the way that the first 10 minutes shape and are the basis of conversation for the next 50, the (virtual) doors to the workshop will close after 5 minutes and late arrivals will not be able to join.

Highly participatory! While we welcome you to bring food to snack on, this is not a session where you can just listen in or multitask.

Also, the norm in our events is to have your camera on. It's totally fine if you want to remain off-camera, but we ask that anyone with their camera off still be fully engaged and participating in the session.

This event is exclusively for those who are Card Carrying Facilitators (get it!?) and 

you will need to bring your deck when you participate!

March | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

How do we relate to the people we disagree with? How do we approach disagreements that feel personal and political? Or address hot topics, particularly when they're with people who we're leading, teaching, or facilitating?

We've found that the way we approach those moments of disagreement can make all the difference to the outcome.

Led by Meg Bolger of Facilitator Cards, But You're Wrong... is a session borne from 10 years of facilitating social justice educational workshops, and aims to help participants breakdown: 

This session will involve a mix of storytelling, live polling, mini-lectures, breakout room group work, and solo reflection time. 

I can only stay for an hour - is that okay?

Yes! However, since this is a facilitated learning experience, you'll miss out on a lot of the learning that happens if you're not able to attend live.

Yes! If after you want to make a contribution as a way to express thanks for the session, we'd love you to contribute to our scholarship fund. 

But You're Wrong...Navigating Disagreements

April | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

May | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

The Playground is the place to learn new facilitation processes and frameworks in a experiential way! Every month we explore two new activities from the Facilitator Cards deck you can use in your facilitations! RSVP to come play with us. :)  

The way the Playground works is that first, you'll experience the activities we're exploring as participants. Then after we're done moving through the activity, we'll put on our 'facilitator hats' and look at the process as facilitators. What makes that process work? When could you use it? What tweaks might change it in interesting ways.

Rarely do we get to geek out with other facilitators on the little details that make a big difference, but that's what we'll get up to tomorrow. If this sounds fun to you, we'd love you to join us, it's totally free you just need to RSVP.

These sessions are totally free and limited to 25 people, so snag your spot now.

Due to the short nature of this workshop and the way that the first few minutes shape and are the basis of conversation for the next 50, the (virtual) doors to the workshop will close after 5 minutes and late arrivals will not be able to join.

Playground Recording April

June | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

Current students want to know that their school is addressing social justice topics. Which means all of us are doing our best to provide programming that - addresses and acknowledges social justice issues, give students skills that will allow them to coexist and be in community with each other (without simply trying to seem like the smartest, most socially just person in the room), and that gives them a shot to actually connect with each other across difference. College is often the most diverse space incoming student have lived. This session is designed to provide tools for navigating the diversity of identities and ideologies and the inevitable disagreements that arise from them.

But You’re Wrong is a session all about the ways we view each other when we’re in conflict, particularly when that conflict is about political, social justice, or hot button issues.

What are the stories that form about the people we disagree with? How do we act when we think we’re right and they’re wrong? And what strategies can help us navigate those conflict in a healthy way?

The ultimate goal is for anyone who attends the session to not only have more perspective on others but to walk away with specific strategies they can implement when navigate challenging disagreements.

Administrators and student affairs professionals. If those titles don’t fit you but you supervise students and student leaders or organize professional development within your school or community, we want you to come and experience But You’re Wrong first hand!

This session was originally designed for a first-year orientation session for 600+ students. It works for groups as small as 6 and as large as the room (or Zoom!) will hold.

By attending the workshop you’ll get to experience the workshop, know exactly what we’d be offering, and find out if it is a good fit for your students and community.

I’m not in student affairs but this sounds cool can I come?

Yes! If you are looking for professional development sessions for your leadership, managers, teachers, or community, this could be a great fit.

Is this a lecture? How interactive is the session?

 a lecture. It’s a highly interactive workshop that involves a ton of different invitations for participation. We’ll start off with some live-polling, do some self-assessment, moving into breakout room discussions, debriefs, and self-reflection exercises. It moves quickly enough that everyone stays active the whole time but not so quickly that we lose people along the way.

But You’re Wrong is led by Meg Bolger a long-time social justice educator and facilitator. Meg has over 10+ years of social justice facilitation experience. She helped start 

This session is Meg’s Magnum Opus, an urgently important distillation of perspectives and strategies that everyone can use to have breakthrough conversations and helps us humanize people—no matter how deep the divide may seem.

Can I invite a bunch of people from my organization?

If I can’t come...are you offering this again?

to add your name to the interest form for the next session.

Interest Form for Future Sessions of But You're Wrong

Yes, and it will be shared all those who register for the event (or who add their name to the interest form), it will not be publicly listed.

Facilitator Cards are simple, easy-to-implement frameworks and processes you can use no matter what topic you're facilitating.

Need new ideas for how to get people engaged? We got 'em.

Need to be reminded of all the ways you already know how to facilitate (beyond the 5 things you normally do)? We'll cover that!

Want your session to be oriented towards keeping people engaged, energy up, and participation high? We know the feeling!

This one-hour session will be an interactive workshop aimed at helping you understand what the cards are and how you can use them to improve the sessions, trainings, and facilitations you're already leading, no matter if you're a seasoned pro or a new facilitator.

What Are Facilitator Cards

July | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

August | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

**Doors to this event will close after 5 minutes into the session more details on why below!**

​This session will be facilitated, interactive, and is hands on time with your cards. It will not be a lecture. It will be full of conversation, reflection, connection, and emergent learning! So please only attend it you can be present to participating in that type of session.

For this reason, doors will close after 5 minutes into the session. 

We know life happens and that everyone’s norms around time are different. For short sessions like this one where the experience builds upon the previous 5 minutes continuously, it’s important we all start together.

​There will be a recording made available for anyone who registers.

September | Become a Card Shark | Facilitator Cards

Good facilitation makes time fly, great facilitation is a game changer. 

It can help groups communicate through challenging discussions, navigate conflict, and connect with material in personal ways.

In this session we will explore what the essential choices and moves we make as facilitators that make all the difference in our sessions. You'll walk away way with specific tactics and techniques to improve your future facilitations, while building confidence to flex your plan to meet your group in the moment.

This session is also built around our favorite facilitation tool, 

. You'll leave not only knowing the philosophy and approach behind these cards but with hands on practice using the cards to solve facilitation challenges.

, a professional facilitation geek and founder of 

. Meg has been helping people learn and skill up their facilitation for more than a decade. Meg is the co-authored 

The intensive will be 3 hours including breaks.

We'll be focused on the following questions:

This intensive is limited to 25 people to ensure it is a personalized experience where participants get to know, grow, and connect with other facilitators.

Every registration also includes a deck of 

. If you already have a deck enter code IHAVECARDS for $75 off your order.

 individual. This training is personalized and every person needs to be on their own computer, with their own deck of Facilitator Cards, and registered individually for it to work. You're a facilitator, you understand 🤓 . 

I have a deck of Facilitator Cards already!