Longer Tables and beyond
Shared meals and large gatherings that turn a crowd of strangers into neighbors, and start the pathways care will travel later.
Plan an activation
Work with me
Five ways to bring more connection into the room
Whether it is a conference, a shared meal for 3,000, a neighborhood, or a circle of eight, the work is the same: design the conditions where people feel seen, heard, valued, and understood.
Connection Crew
Ask about Connection Crew
Superconnectors for your event
Connection by design, so the relationships your attendees need already exist when they need them. Two layers, working together.
The people
Trained Connectors and facilitators on site who shape the connection arc, make introductions, and make sure nobody eats lunch alone.
The technology
Badge technology by Covve. Tap someone's badge and you both receive an intro email on the spot. Everyone leaves with a complete list of who they met. No app to download.
Circle and support group facilitation
Circles and peer groups built on trust, shared leadership, and mutual support: the practice ground for a community capable of hard things.
Start a circle
Find a place for your group to meet
Coming soon. Tell Connection Buddy what your club or community group needs, in plain words. It finds San Diego spaces that actually fit, shows what is known and what is not, and gets you a warm path to the person who can say yes. Built with club leaders first.
Need a place now? Email meTalks on belonging
Occasional talks, usually with Sara, on why resilience is relational and how care becomes infrastructure. Practical, personal, and never a lecture.
Ask about a talk
Why this matters
Resilience is relational.
We're told to be resilient on our own: manage stress, develop grit, bounce back. But much of our resilience doesn't live inside us. It lives between us, in the relationships we've built and the care that moves through them.
Connection creates the pathways. Compassion moves care through them. Repeated action builds shared capacity. That capacity is community resilience, and we build it before we need it.
- Invitation
- Repeated contact
- Familiarity
- Trust
- Understanding
- Compassion
- Action
- Shared capacity
- Resilience
Low-stakes connection creates high-stakes capacity.
Upcoming: Resilience Is Relational, a Big Idea Night with Sara Schairer. Nov 12, 2026, North Park, San Diego. Details and registration
I am a community builder, certified facilitator, and connection experience designer on a mission to co-create a deeply connected world by bringing people together.
After years of professional success alongside loneliness and isolation, I made a deliberate decision to change how I was living. Sobriety, endurance running, men's work, and committed support circles transformed my life and shaped the work I do today.
I lead Connection Crew by Covve, a global team of connection professionals working to help one million people feel more connected by 2030. Through Connection Crew, I partner with conferences and event teams to bring intentional connection into the experience rather than leaving it to chance: designing the connection arc, training event teams and volunteers, and facilitating experiences where people feel seen, heard, valued, and understood.
My facilitation practice is grounded in extensive training through YPO Key Associate Forums, years of facilitating men's work with The ManKind Project, and three years leading the Joyful Connection Masterclass. The focus is always the same: building the trust, shared leadership, and mutual support that help groups accomplish difficult things without burning people out.
In San Diego, I co-founded the San Diego Chamber of Connection, co-lead the San Diego Community Builders Network, and co-founded Longer Tables San Diego. Following the Balboa Park Table, Longer Tables San Diego is preparing to bring 3,000 San Diegans together for the Waterfront Park Table in spring 2027. Connection Buddy grows out of that work: a way to help the people who bring people together find the right place, the right person, and the next step.
Closer to home, Sara and I co-created the Mission Beach Neighbor Hang, a monthly neighborhood gathering we have hosted with neighbors since May 2024. What began with coffee and bagels has become a living experiment in how small, repeated moments of connection build trust, compassion, and a community's capacity to care for one another. That experiment is where the idea that resilience is relational came from, and it's the lens for everything above.
I love my fiancée and co-presenter, Sara, my family, men's circles, my teammates, my dog Obi-Wan, tacos, meaningful conversations, and creating spaces where people feel they belong.
Longer Tables San Diego
The Balboa Park Table.
Next: 3,000 San Diegans at one table at Waterfront Park, spring 2027.
What I do
Three practices, one purpose
01
Community builder
Starting and sustaining the places where neighbors become a community.
- Longer Tables San DiegoCo-founder
- San Diego Chamber of ConnectionCo-founder
- San Diego Community Builders NetworkCo-lead
- Mission Beach Neighbor HangCo-creator and host since 2024
02
Certified facilitator
Holding the kind of room where people can say the true thing.
- The ManKind ProjectMen's work facilitation
- YPO Key Associate ForumsForum facilitation training
- Joyful Connection MasterclassLead facilitator, three years
03
Connection experience designer
Designing experiences and tools so connection happens on purpose.
- Connection Crew by CovveLead; one million people more connected by 2030
- Connection BuddyHelping San Diego club and community leaders find a place to meet, with a warm intro instead of a cold inquiry. Coming soon.
- Relational resilienceWith Sara Schairer, exploring how connection and compassion become a community's capacity to handle hard things
Let's connect
Building something in the connection space?
If you want help making your event, organization, or neighborhood more connected, from a circle of eight to a gathering of 3,000, or you just want to compare notes, I would like to hear from you.
Let's ConnectStay curious,
Hansen