Neighbor. Mediation Institue
Our StoryNeighbor Mediation Institute is a Black-led mediation and conflict transformation practice based in Georgia.
We support people and institutions navigating civil disputes, leadership conflict, organizational tension, community harm, workplace breakdown, neighbor disputes, nonprofit challenges, and difficult conversations that require structure, care, and skilled facilitation.
Our work is rooted in The Neighbor Method™, a proprietary framework developed by Penelope French that blends mediation practice, conflict transformation, cultural analysis, restorative principles, spiritual care, organizational development, and community-rooted wisdom.
We do not believe conflict is only a problem to solve. Conflict is information.
It reveals what has gone unheard, what has been neglected, what values are colliding, and what needs structure, accountability, or repair.
Community Offerings
At the center of the Institute is The Neighbor Method™, a proprietary conflict transformation framework developed by Penelope French. The Neighbor Method™ understands conflict not only as a dispute between parties, but as a cultural, relational, spiritual, organizational, and systemic event. It asks deeper questions about belonging, obligation, repair, accountability, memory, power, and what it means to be responsible to one another.
Our Conflict Mediation & Transformation services are grounded here . We don’t just resolve conflict; we guide individuals and communities through a process of restoration, relationship repair, and deeper understanding.
Rather than seeing conflict as something to avoid or suppress, we recognize it as a portal to transformation.
Whether you're navigating interpersonal harm, internal team tensions, spiritual disconnection, or organizational fractures, our approach offers:
Trauma-informed facilitation that honors safety, dignity, and lived experience
Restorative and transformative justice frameworks that move beyond punishment into repair
Identity-conscious mediation attentive to race, gender, queerness, power, and history
Spiritual and somatic grounding to help participants stay connected to their values and bodies
Custom-designed healing circles, conflict coaching, and repair plans that restore trust and build capacity
We hold space with care, courage, and cultural clarity that supports communities in moving from rupture to reconnection.
Meet the Founder
Penelope French (they/she/he) is a Ethicist, Theologian, Cultural community organizer & strategist, facilitator, conflict transformation practitioner and Georgia-registered General Civil Mediator.
For more than 17 years, Penelope has supported individuals, organizations, youth, faith communities, nonprofit leaders, organizers, and institutions through difficult conversations, leadership transitions, community conflict, interpersonal harm, and organizational repair.
Before formally becoming a mediator, Penelope was already doing the work of mediation in churches, classrooms, community spaces, movement organizations, youth programs, and nonprofit leadership environments. Their experience as a pastor, chaplain, youth pastor, organizer, educator, facilitator, and strategist shaped a deeply relational approach to conflict.
Penelope’s work is grounded in the belief that conflict is not always a sign that something has failed. Often, conflict is a signal that something needs to be heard, named, structured, repaired, or transformed.
Through Neighbor Mediation Institute, Penelope brings together legal mediation training, community-rooted facilitation, spiritual care from a interfaith lens, restorative practice, and systems thinking to help people and organizations move through conflict with clarity, dignity, and accountability.
Penelope is especially skilled in conflicts involving nonprofit leadership, community organizations, all faith communities, youth-serving institutions, workplace tension, values-based disagreement, identity-based conflict, organizational harm, and disputes where trust, history, grief, power, or culture are central to the conflict.
Value the lived experiences of others.
Our Services
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Our Conflict Mediation & Transformation services are grounded in healing justice, cultural humility, and a commitment to liberation for all, centering those most impacted by systemic harm. We don’t just resolve conflict; we guide individuals and communities through a process of restoration, relationship repair, and deeper understanding.
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Urban Program Development is a comprehensive and innovative service dedicated to addressing the unique needs and challenges of urban communities. It encompasses a wide range of initiatives and strategies aimed at fostering sustainable, inclusive, and thriving urban environments.
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Our Restorative Justice Workshops provide a transformative and educational experience that empowers individuals and communities to engage with restorative justice principles. Restorative justice is a powerful approach that focuses on repairing harm, fostering understanding, and building stronger, more compassionate relationships within organizations, corporate settings, and community spaces.
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This service is dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion that builds empathy. We focus on addressing the intersecting realities of LGBTQIA+ Allyship, mental health, being trauma informed, cultural sensitivity, conflict transformation, peer mediation, restorative justice workshops, suicide prevention within marginalized communities. While building lasting processes and procedures grounded in alternative ways to maintain organizations separate of systemic harm and accountability processes when harms happen that is not punitive.
We partner with organizations, educational institutions, and businesses to provide tailored strategies and guidance to create welcoming, inclusive, and respectful environments for employees, students, and clients.
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.We specialize in providing keynote presentations, interactive seminars, and executive retreats that are tailored to inspire, educate, and transform individuals and organizations. Whether you are a business, an educational institution, or a group of executives, our service is designed to empower and elevate your leadership, team dynamics, and strategic vision.