Search for Common Ground (Search) is the largest dedicated peacebuilding organization. Search helps people find local solutions to today’s toughest violent conflicts, and saves millions of lives in the process.
Worldwide, tens of millions of people are caught up in violent conflict.
SFCG works across societies with conflict resolution techniques and less traditional methods -- community organizing, TV and radio soap opera, sports.
John and Susan Collin Marks have developed a diverse toolkit based on understanding differences and acting on commonalities.
SFCG is working toward long-term resolution of conflicts in 30 countries.
We are building a future where collaboration in the face of conflict is the norm—where our differences stimulate social progress, rather than precipitate violence.
Search scales its impact to create enduring change in three ways: by changing institutions, shifting social norms, and creating new markets.
Founder & Managing Director, Search for Common Ground
Peace Ambassador, Search for Common Ground
John Marks founded Search for Common Ground (Search) in 1982, at the height of the Cold War, to build bridges between the US and the Soviet Union. Operating from the basic belief that the world is running out of space, resources, and recuperative capacity to deal with wasteful conflict, he built Search into one of the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated specifically to ending violent conflict. Prior to founding Search, John served as a Foreign Service officer, as lead staff to Senator Clifford Case, and co-authored bestselling book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. John is Visiting Scholar in Peacebuilding and Social Entrepreneurship at Leiden University in the Netherlands, an Ashoka Senior Fellow, and a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School.
Susan Collin Marks joined in 1992 as Senior Vice President of Search and helped stimulate its major expansion throughout Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the U.S. A native South African, she worked as a peacebuilder during her country's transition from apartheid to democracy. For over 20 years, Susan has facilitated dialogues and offered one-on-one coaching for political, institutional, and civil society leaders worldwide. In 2006, she launched Search’s Leadership Wisdom Initiative. She serves on multiple boards, including the Advisory Council of the Woodrow Wilson International Center Project on Africa and Leadership, and the Abraham Path Initiative. She was portrayed in the PBS documentary Peace X Peace: Women on the Frontlines. Her honors include a Jennings Randolph Peace Fellowship at the United States Institute for Peace, the Institute for Noetic Science's Creative Altruism Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University for Peace in Costa Rica.
In 2014, John and Susan transitioned into Advisory roles, handing over leadership to Shamil Idriss, who has been engaged with Search for over twenty years.
Search works in over 30 countries around the world. In 2021, our media programs reached 19.2 million people. We worked with over 3,000 artists, 4,000 political leaders; 7,000 military and police; and 32,000 religious leaders. In Burundi, our radio production house Studio Ijambo established a rare platform for dialogue between Hutus and Tutsis when the country was on the brink of genocide. This work has been credited by community members and diplomats for helping avert mass atrocities in Burundi. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, our human rights curriculum for army recruits has reached more than 150,000 soldiers, contributing to a decrease in sexual violence perpetrated by security forces. In Yemen, we are training thousands of women and young people to become local mediators. Today, while the war is still ongoing, these mediators are negotiating local solutions on issues such as access to water or domestic violence. In Sri Lanka, we started the CyberGuardians, a group of hundreds of young people who counter online fake news and hate speech. Their work has reached 7 million people (one in three Sri Lankans) and helped de-escalate incidents of religious and ethnic violence.
In March 2022, Search for Common Ground (Skoll Awardee 2006), will celebrate its 40th year as a peacebuilding organization, having amassed a long track record of transformational impact in conflict…
Jess Murrey, advisor at Search for Common Ground (2006 Skoll Awardee), recently spoke with two peacebuilders, Shoqi Al-Maktary from Yemen and Ehsanullah Abrar in Afghanistan, to learn how countries torn…
In 1993, political tension in Burundi ignited and quickly engulfed the country in violent conflict. Long-simmering tensions born of colonial divisions quickly ignited into bloody massacre. Hutus and Tutsis who…
