Bill Lincoln designed and conducted the foundational trainings for many of the practitioners and thought leaders who went on to establish the field of mediation as we know it today, both in the US and around the world. His training manuals and writings, and videos of Bill’s trainings and interviews, continue to provide important tools for practitioners and trainers.
Bill started his career in 1967 as a community organizer for Saul Alinsky in Rochester, NY. He was recruited by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to mediate a desegregation battle. AAA then asked Bill to help start community mediation centers. Community members in Rochester were trained to become mediators and provide low-cost-effective conflict resolution services. In his trainings, Bill developed foundational mediation and negotiation techniques that are still used today (click here for Bill’s conflict resolution trainings and manuals). Over the course of his career, Bill personally trained thousands of people in 15 countries around the world in the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict, and played a pivotal role in peace talks domestically and abroad. He went on to become a trusted advisor to the UN, and a key architect of modern-day standards for conflict mediation and interest-based bargaining.
In the U.S., Bill mediated dozens of disputes, including riots within adult correctional institutions (Massachusetts), public school desegregation crises (Rochester NY, Boston MA), Native American affairs (Wounded Knee SD, Arizona, Washington state), environmental battles, and internal affairs for major corporations like Ford, Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon. On the international stage, Bill mediated negotiations between the Sandinistas and the political opposition in Nicaragua, coached parties at the Guatemala Peace Process, unified a fractious Solidarity in Poland, and worked in Sudan and Afghanistan to end hostilities between religious factions. In an era of warming relations with Russia, Bill saw an opportunity to strengthen positive ties with the “new” Russia”. In collaboration with faculty from the University of St Petersburg he became the co-creator and director of the Russian-American Program on Conflictology starting the first community mediation program and college degree program in St Petersburg.
As one of nine federal commissioners on the "U.S. Commission to Hear and Examine Proposals for the National Academy for Peace and Conflict Resolution,” Bill helped shape the United States Institute of Peace, established by Congress in 1984. He was the recipient of two of the most prestigious awards in the professions of negotiation and mediation: the 2003 Master Forum Award given by the Straus Center for Dispute resolution of Pepperdine University’s School of Law; and the 2004 Award of Excellence by the International Academy of Mediators. He received the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize in 2006 in recognition for his national and international peace-making work.
William (Bill) Lincoln (1940-2020) was the president of The Lincoln Institute for Collaborative Planning and Problem Solving, Inc and the executive director of the non-profit Conflict Resolution Research and Resource Institute.
