Unlocking the Power of Communities

1. Unlocking the Power of Communities

2. Brainteaser Class #3 What are theories of community change? Why do we need to know them? Please describe the communities in your areas of action? In your answer please describe the three parts of these communities and how they relate to your possible community project? What are a few things to consider and discover when looking at a community to study? Identify a community or group in which you are interested and hope to work with this semester? And tell me why?

3. Community Org as Core Practice Micro practice – basic needs addressed Mezzo practice – leadership development Macro – changes in communities and organizations. Community organization addresses all of these issues. It is a core practice.

4. Four components of practice Engagement Assessment Intervention Evaluation These skills are part of micro, mezzo, and macro practice.

5. Learning From Community Projects let stories move you build community and democracy in the streets and in the classroom organize around strengths go out and get the seat of your pants dirty with research connect with a model connect the dots of a struggle with your stories

6. Shepard Community Org Model 1) Start with an issue and an alternate proposal 2) Do research about that issue 3) Mobilize supporters around this ask 4) Use direct action to push the issue forward 5) Use media and social networks to push it 6) Have a long and short term legal strategy 7) Make sure you add a jigger of fun and play

7. CO: Intended Outcomes Participants will gain a greater sense of confidence to initiate change and increased understanding of: • Community development • Difference between a service orientation and a development orientation • Ethical demands on workers to shape workplace • The human service organization as a context for community change practice • Some general principles for promoting change

9. Healthy communities tend to produce healthy people.Distressed and depressed communities tend to produce distressed and depressed people.

10. Definition of Community Development Community development recognizes sources of wealth (or community capital) that exist in the community, helps those sources to grow, and links them with one another to form a stronger, more capable community. Fundamental to this notion is that members of the community itself have the primary responsibility for decision making and action. Community development produces self-reliant, self-sustaining communities that mobilize resources for the benefit of their members.

11. Elements of Community Development • BUILD ON COMMUNITY ASSETS • INCREASE SKILLS OF INDIVIDUALS • CONNECT PEOPLE WITH ONE ANOTHER • CONNECT EXISTING RESOURCES • CREATE OR INCREASE COMMUNITY RESOURCES

12. EXPECT COMMUNITY TO ASSUME OWNERSHIP OF DIRECTION, ACTION AND RESOURCES • PROMOTE THE EXPECTATION THAT COMMUNITY MEMBERS WILL DO ALL WORK POSSIBLE • CREATE BENEFICIAL EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

14. Perhaps the most important contributor to a community’s success is a belief in its abilitiesrather than in its problems.

15. Working in a Funding Restricted EnvironmentRecognizing Sources of Community Capital • Environmental Capital • Physical Capital • Economic Capital • Human Capital • Political Capital • Information Capital • Cultural Capital • Spiritual Capital • Social Capital

17. Service focuses on problems Service is episodic Service reinforces power imbalances from giver to receiver Service promotes passivity Development focuses on assets and capacities Development is ongoing Development equalizes power relationships Development promotes capability and power Service versus Development

18. Service relies on experts Service emphasizes recipient ownership of problems Service keeps recipients isolated and dependent Service meets needs Service requires problems Service expects no contribution to others Development relies on partnerships Development emphasizes mutual ownership of possibilities Development links people with shared interests and promotes leadership Development fuels abilities Development prevents Development requires contribution

19. Acting responsibly, you cannot simultaneously want things to be different and not want to be powerful.

20. Conditions Necessary For Community Action • TENSION BETWEEN DISCOMFORT WITH THE PRESENT SITUATION AND ATTRACTION TO A NEW SITUATION • BELIEF IN THE POSSIBILITY THAT ACTION WILL PRODUCE A SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME • RECOGNITION OF A COURSE OF ACTION

21. SUFFICIENT CREDIBILITY OF THE ORGANIZERS OF THE EFFORT, VALIDITY OF THE ISSUE AND SUSTAINABILITY OF THE ORGANIZATION • SUFFICIENT DEGREE OF EMOTION • SUFFICIENTLY RECEPTIVE ENVIRONMENT • DECISION TO ACT

23. Questions for Community Capacity Building • Is there an identified community? • Does the project build skills of community members? • Does the project produce new leaders and new teachers? • Who owns the project? • Does the project produce new community resources that can exist apart from the project?

24. Capacity Questions cont’d • Do the benefits or resources create other benefits or resources? • Which community capacities or assets will the project build upon? • Which community conditions does the project intend to change? • How does the project build inclusivity? • How does the project build social capital? • How does the project acknowledge and meet system needs?

25. Snapshot of your situation

26. Lists of Actors

27. Building Community Identity • Community name • Community artifacts • Feeling of community membership – not visitorship • Sense of shared values • Recognition of shared experiences • Convening occasions

28. Elements of Sustainability • Members • Leadership • Structure • Action/Issue agenda • Strong working relationships • Evaluation of efforts and use of evaluation to guide future efforts • Funding

29. Some Additional Tips

30. A Checklist for Action • From whom do we want to get a response? • What response do we want? • What action or series of actions has the best chance of producing that response? • Are the members of the organization able and willing to take these actions? • How do these actions lead to the further development of our organization?

31. Checklist continued • How do our actions produce immediate gains in a way that helps us long term? • Is everything we are doing related to the outcomes we want to produce? • How will we assess the effectiveness of our chosen approach and to refine our next steps? • What are we doing to keep this interesting?

33. Additional Principles for Promoting Change • START SMALL, THOUGH YOU CAN STOP BIG - SPIRAL APPROACH • POWER/ISSUE RELATIONSHIP • CYCLE OF EMPOWERMENT • DECREASE THE DISTANCE • THE ACTION IS IN THE REACTION • THE 3 HOLY M’s – the Market, the Medium, the Message

34. WORK OF CHANGE IS REALLY THE WORK OF SMALL GROUPS - MAJOR CHALLENGES ARE INTERNAL, NOT EXTERNAL KEY QUESTION ALWAYS ASKED RECOGNIZE MUTUAL BENEFITS KEEP IT INTERESTING OBSERVE THE 50/10% RULE (50% of time should be face to face time, 10% admin) EVERYTHING HAPPENS THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS

35. RECOGNIZE PROGRESS BUILD MOMENTUM; DON’T RE-BUILD IT WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN YOU WILL ACT TO CONFIRM (impotence, inability, other’s responsibility; or power, ability, responsibility) LAUGH AND P.E.A. (Persistence, Energy, and generate Action).

36. Accept the Fact of Conditions,Not the Inevitability of Them

38. Some Rules of the Game: Some Basic Things to Know • Those who play the game make the rules • Each community has its ankle weights • The most powerful obstacles - fear, apathy, and ignorance • If you treat people as allies, they are likely to become allies; if you treat people as enemies, they are likely to become enemies • Don’t start with the most important thing, start with the most interesting

39. More Rules: Things to know about Yourself • Prevent yourself from contracting the disease of being right • Listen as aggressively as you speak • Take the world as it is - not as it should be • Accept the fact of conditions, not the inevitability of them • Be willing to be surprised

40. More Rules about Yourself • To say “yes” to something is to say “no” to something else - pick the hills that you are going to fight on • Avoid falling victim to listening for things you want to hear • Look forward to some dessert

41. The Fab Four:Most important things for a change agent to do • Connect people – to issue; to organization; and to each other • Develop leadership – connect to interest; connect to abilities; provide support • Inspire confidence • Create and maintain a culture of learning

42. The privilege and the penalty of your education and the position you hold in the community is that, over the coming decades, as in the past, you will be the pace setters for political and social thought in your community. You may accept this responsibility, but it makes no difference. It is inescapable. If you decide to set no pace, to forward no dreams and to have no vision, you will still be the pacesetters. You will simply have decided that there is no pace. Adlai Stevenson

43. Photography by Allan Sturm (www.allansturm.com)

44. Brainteaser Class #2 What is community and community organization? Why are people poor? And what strategy can we use to address this issue? How does human services address this question? What is social capital? What role can social capital play in building social change? What is participant action research? How does it work?