Major donors at many colleges criticized their schools’ response to the Israel-Hamas war and publicly threatened to withhold charitable gifts. At independent schools, the pushback tended to be more focused on community letters. How can the advancement office navigate global events and extreme polarization to achieve goals? In this session, we’ll look at research findings from psychology, neurology, and political science to better understand why our society feels intractably divided. We’ll dive into tabletop exercises to work through challenging scenarios that independent school advancement offices face, and we’ll examine ways advancement can help to bring the school community closer together.