LESSON 6 Flashcards
Isbased on the democratic idea that everyone who is affected by an issue that impacts their community should have a say in the decision making around it. It, moreover, holds the promise that public participation can influence decisions that affect the provision of services, future visions and sustainability of our communities.
Seeks to engage community to achieve sustainable outcomes, equitable decision-making processes, and deepen relationships and trust between government organizations and communities.
community engagement
___work collaboratively to create and realize sustainable visions for their community’s future. For ___, it’s about working with, and listening to, communities to build long term relationships and develop meaningful solutions to complex issues. By deepening these relationships, ideally, the value of inclusivity is central, where government entities create dialogue with the very diversity of their communities.
People, governments and organizations
Governments and organizations
promise is to better engage community to help make better public decisions. It is, thereby, both an orientation toward the importance of community members’ lived experience to influence interactions between government organizations and communities, and an approach that guides the process of those interactions.
community engagement’s
___Communities have the power to make their voices heard. And elections represent a significant opportunity to drive change. ___ are at their most effective when local governments, municipalities and councils activate communities, mobilizing on issues that impact their everyday lives. For it is in the local, placed-based arena that community members can have their most direct impact on policy.
Voters
Advocacy campaigns
The ___ shows that successful collective impact initiatives typically have five conditions that together produce true alignment and lead to powerful results
Stanford Social Innovation Research
CONDITIONS OF COLLECTIVE SUCCESS
- COMMON AGENDA
- SHARED MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
- MUTUALLY REINFORCING ACTIVITIES
- CONTINUOUS COMMUNICATION
- BACKBONE SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS
Collective impact requires all participants to have a shared vision for change, one that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions. Take a close look at any group of funders and nonprofits that believe they are working on the same social issue, and you quickly find that it is often not the same issue at all.
Each organization often has a slightly different definition of the problem and the ultimate goal.
Every participant need not agree with every other participant on all dimensions of the problem.
- COMMON AGENDA
Developing is essential to collective impact. Agreement on a common agenda is illusory without agreement on the ways success will be measured and reported. Collecting data and measuring results consistently on a short list of indicators at the community level and across all participating organizations not only ensures that all efforts remain aligned, it also enables the participants to hold each other accountable and learn from each other’s successes and failures.
- SHARED MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
Collective impact initiatives depend on a diverse group of stakeholders working together, not by requiring that all participants do the same thing, but by encouraging each participant to undertake the specific set of activities at which it excels in a way that supports and is coordinated with the actions of others.
- MUTUALLY REINFORCING ACTIVITIES
Developing trust among nonprofits, corporations, and government agencies is a monumental challenge. Participants need several years of regular meetings to build up enough experience with each other to recognize and appreciate the common motivation behind their different efforts. They need time to see that their own interests will be treated fairly, and that decisions will be made on the basis of objective evidence and the best possible solution to the problem, not to favor the priorities of one organization over another.
- CONTINUOUS COMMUNICATION
Creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization and staff with a very specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative. Coordination takes time, and none of the participating organizations has any to spare. The expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails.
- BACKBONE SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS
requires a dedicated staff separate from the participating organizations who can plan, manage, and support the initiative through ongoing facilitation, technology and communications support, data collection and reporting, and handling the myriad logistical and administrative details needed for the initiative to function smoothly.
The backbone organization
Strive has simplified the initial staffing requirements for a backbone organization to three roles:
project manager,
data manager,
facilitator
“in person” or what is commonly called “___” community engagement can take the form of citizen’s juries, citizen’s assemblies or public meetings and consultations, for instance. These connect people and build relationships in a hands-on environment while accessing information necessary for community members to have their say on the issues at hand.
Traditional
face to face
Community engagement can include, among other things, participatory forums, online community panels and digital storytelling, enabling deeper questions to be asked of the issues at hand
digital-first
