General Community Building

An online mongraph, Building Healthy Community: commissioned by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, written by Bruce Adams provieds a rationale and a set of strategies for community building.

The Vancouver, British Columbia Citizen's Committee has compiled a very practical set of tips and examples on community organizing and community building called The Citizen's Handbook .

Community Building Advice has articles by Derek Okubo, director of the Community Assistance Team of the National Civic League. He presents ideas on citizen participation, community leadership, inter-group relations, and consensus building. He applys the 10 point National Civic League "Civic Index" to building healthier communities.

Community Tool Box Here is an online manual on community building strategies for promoting healthy communities. You will find over 3,000 downloadable pages of specific, strategies and skill-building information on over 150 community topics

 

Asset Based Community Development

An approach for community organizing and building based on relationships formed around recognizing and using local assets has gained prominence in the community building field in the last decade. For manuals on the overall approach, on mapping individual, association, institution, economic and environmental assets see the resources of the The Asset-Based Community Development Institute

Community Building Resources Aim High based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada has developed an approach called the Community Capacity Building and Asset Mapping© model which they have applied in Edmonton. They also offer workshops and other support to assist communities across Canada in building healthy community using their asset approach. Descriptions of many of these community efforts can also be found through this site.

 

Community Dialogue

The Study Circles Resource Center in Pomfret, CT "has developed a model for community-wide dialogue that combines several tested principles of citizen involvement, including broad-based sponsoring coalitions and inclusive grass-roots recruitment. Strategies for connecting dialogue with action steps give participants a way to make an ongoing impact on issues they care about." Their site covers issues, methods, and resources for this approach. Planning Community-wide Study Circle Programs: A Step-by-Step Guide offers guidance on how to organize and conduct study circles in your community.

The National Issues Forum is a nationwide network of educational and community organizations that convene groups to deliberate about nation-wide public issues. The NIF site offers you an opportunity to learn about the concepts, issues and materials. You can also find out how to begin holding forums in your community, schools, churches or civic organizations.

Public Agenda is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion research and citizen education organization founded Daniel Yankelovich and Cyrus Vance. Drawing on its research, Public Agenda prepares a broad array of educational materials that help explain policy issues to the public in a balanced and easy-to-understand way. Citizens in National Issues Forums discussions held around the country every year can use this information to weigh various choices and make educated decisions.

In an online presentation titled Building Deliberative Communities Michael Briand presents the thesis that communities engaging in deliberative discussions using a community conventions approach can learn their own strengths and weaknesses, and can help bolster confidence in their ability to change for the better.

 
Community Organizing

For an excellent manual on elements of community organizing see Basics of Organizing a valuable resource prepared by COMM-ORG

In "Dynamics of Organizing" Shell Trapp discusses topics like: Power Analysis, Strategy and Tactics, Developing an Issue Group, Coalition Organizing, and Building Power & Victories.

Coalitions,Partnerships, and Collaboration

National Network for Collaboration is an initiative of the national Cooperative Extension Children, Youth and Families Education and Research Network. Their site contains a useful compilation of practical resources on how to form and sustain coalitions and other collaborative initiatives. Some resources focus on youth and family initiatives, others are quite broad and generic in scope.

Building Coalitions - How to Bulletins: The Ohio State University Center for Action on Coalitions prepared a set of 1-4 page practical fact sheets available on 16 topics pertaining to organizing and operating community coalitions. To get to the fact sheets go to the Ohio State website, then click Building Coalitions

Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential is an online 190 page monograph in PDF format that explores the special challenges of evaluating programs carried out through community collaboration. It discusses the collaboration context, presents a model for collaboration and divides evaluation into four areas: evaluating feasibility, process, outcomes and self-interest. Both concepts and practical tools are presented in each area. I am pleased as a co-author that Wisconsin Extension makes this available for wide access and use.

Protecting one's turf frequently surfaces as a challenge in community collaboration. For ideas on how to use negotiation to resolve turf issues see Collaborative Negotiation: A Creative Process for Resolving Turf Issues . In this 4 page bulletin I discuss ideas drawn from interest based negotiation as a solution to this problem.

Many community projects face challenges in sustaining collaborative efforts. Ideas and Methods for Renewing and Maintaining Momentum Collaboration is a brief ideas bulletin that outlines several useful approaches for meeting this challenge. The ideas are drawn from three publications produced to aid those engaged in community coalitions.