10 Events LEADING WITH LEARNING Teaching the Art of Designing for Belonging By Naomi Crellin As an educator teaching “Designing Events for Belonging,” I’ve structured the learning experience around three pillars: theory, tools, and technique. This semester, students had the unique opportunity to apply these elements to a real-world challenge: designing Marriott International’s Association Masters Event, scheduled for San Francisco in 2025. Three Essential Steps to Design for Belonging 1. U nderstanding Your Organization’s Definition of Belonging The first step in creating meaningful connections is understanding what belonging means within your specific context. The Wheel of Belonging serves as a valuable framework for this assessment, helping organizations identify their primary pathways to connection. Our most successful students demonstrated that focusing on one or two specific pathways yields more impactful results than trying to accommodate every possible avenue to belonging. Notably, these students recognized that belonging doesn’t begin at the event’s doorstep—it starts well before. They developed robust pre-event programs that laid the groundwork for meaningful connections, allowing them to understand and address participant needs months in advance. In an era where connection has never been more crucial, the events industry is witnessing a fundamental shift in how we think about gathering. At NYU’s Event Management MSc program, I used the fall semester course to reshape how future event professionals approach their craft, placing belonging at the core of the design intention. This article shares some of my reflections at the close of a semester where a group of students were exposed to a wide range of concepts on Belonging, including the Belonging Playbook. They were given wide latitude in how they chose to apply the concepts, with no prescriptive approach or ‘right and wrong.’ This provided insights into the aspects of belonging that felt most natural to grasp and apply. The Evolution of Belonging in Event Design The journey to understanding belonging in experiences began with a simple yet profound question from Google’s Experience Institute: what does it mean to belong, and how can we create it consistently? This query led to the development of the Wheel of Belonging, a comprehensive research project identifying eight distinct pathways to belonging. Through this work, one truth became crystal clear: while belonging means something different to everyone, there are universal themes that resonate across diverse audiences. Bosco & Leo used a Belonging Map to guide personalized approaches to preduring and postevent. Experience Journey map example from one of the student teams. Pathway Personas created by Nick and Qiyu, using the Belonging Playbook, incorporated statements from Valuegraphics Belonging Index.
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