David Wilcox's List: Community organising

Here Cormac Russell, of the Asset Based Community Development Institute, described exactly what a Community Builder does, and how they behave in the process of Community Building

Five headlines emerged from what we consider a first ever gathering of this type:

Our primary intervention as community network builders is to create, protect and preserve intentional community spaces that help people weave a community fabric of relationships, co-investment and action
Well designed and effectively stewarded spaces that feed the aspirational energy of residents, can unleash significant capacity for creative local solutions and cultivate important new connections across class, ethnic and racial, geographic and generational divides.
As stewards of these intentional spaces, we must lead from within.  Which means we must fully inhabit these spaces ourselves and practice; expose our own questions and vulnerabilities and work to diminish the impact of positional power on the co-investment process.
The forms needed to support this work must be more flexible, less boundaried and more adaptable than traditional community-based organizations.
The case for supporting community network building is clear to practitioners, but needs a relationship-based approach to engaging funders, policy makers and others in co-creating a data/narrative for external case making.

Good article! http://t.co/dDWt66jU @MalibuC1969 @fairsharetrust @LynneKowalski @MasseyManc @davidwilcox @CormacRussell

To get at why online neighbor connecting matters from a public interest perspective (and why community groups, governments, foundations should promote it BIG TIME), we’ve generated a list of all the good things that can be generated by neighbor connecting online (and off).

A short history of Action to RE:generate Community Trust and an introductory guide to Root Solution Listening Matters

Last week, OPM, Turning Point and Catch22 held a seminar hosted by NESTA to mark the launch of their paper, the New Neighbourhood Army: The role of community organising in the Big Society.
The event raised a number of interesting contradictions around the role, purpose, nature and potential impacts of community organisers. There was the desire for clarity around the new Big Society agenda, alongside the sense that community organising was, and is, something that has been happening for decades. The audience debated how a national, state funded, training programme for community organising could be imposed when community organising, by definition, is a grassroots, independent movement.  And there were questions of funding, accountability and independence – how can community organisers be funded and yet remain independent of these funding interests?

This blog contains just some of the questions and contradictions which were raised through the event and includes questions posed through twitter contributors (#communityorg).

Taking a collaborative, community-based approach to real estate development is about to become a requirement - and not just a nicety - of city planning and placemaking in the UK.

The UK Government has published legislation that it describes as a new era of people power, a Localism Bill that will change the way that development is permitted in towns, cities and neighbourhoods and create new opportunities for communities to exercise their rights - and there's a useful cheat-sheet by Colin Buchanan here.

Once the broader programme of reform of the new Administration takes effect, it will become clear whether this is a part of a redistribution of power or a form of devolution of dependency.

Useful Background on CitizenUK approach by Luke Bretherton, who is researching community organising in the UK "Community organising, as exemplified by CitizensUK, is a principle embraced by all three of the main parties, but it questions core tenets of political liberalism"

Maurice Glasman was moderately well known in Labour circles in the capital thanks to his ground-breaking work with London Citizens – an alliance of faith institutions, universities, schools and trade unions that he brought together to run community projects. Suddenly, his political philosophy of local activism is being touted by some as Labour's answer – its possible trump card – to David Cameron's "big society". Others in Labour go further, saying it could even offer the kernel of the "big idea" that Miliband is desperately seeking to define his leadership.

We now have two strong strands emerging in the development of Big Society community organisers, and organising. The other day NESTA announced their Neighbourhood Challenge programme under which a number of organisations will be funded for a year to experiment with different types of organising in 10 areas, and then to share experience.
Last week more details emerged of the bigger programme originally announced by David Cameron at the Big Society manifesto launch in March: a "Neighbourhood army" of 5,000 full-time, professional community organisers who will be trained with the skills they need to identify local community leaders, bring communities together, help people start their own neighbourhood groups, and give communities the help they need to take control and tackle their problems".
The Office for Civil Society (OCS) announced a tender (deadline 23rd December 2010) for a National Partner to further develop, implement and manage the programme. Nick Bird has produced a briefing on behalf of Urban Forum - see below or download pdf here.

In this space you'll find pages that cover all aspects of local community organizing. Pages include overviews, programmatic details related to NetSquared Local, case studies from organizers in the field, and available resources to help you be successful.

A new pyramid of intensity of engagement: http://bit.ly/d3Bjis Useful to #bigsociety and #behaviourchange activity measurement

Report from Gabriel Chanan and Colin Miller"The idea of 'the big society' became part of national political debate in the course of the 2010 national election campaign. This is an important development irrespective of the rest of the political package. An

Sherry Arnstein, writing in 1969 about citizen involvement in planning processes in the United States, described a ladder of participation. (see below for more on Sherry Arnstein)

(Arnstein, Sherry R. "A Ladder of Citizen Participation," Journal of the A

Mapping for Change is an innovative social enterprise that exists to support the development of sustainable communities. We specialise in providing participatory mapping services to communities, voluntary sector organisations, local authorities and develo

Chamberlain Forum is a group of people who have been inspired by what has been achieved in neighbourhoods like Balsall Heath in Birmingham: where citizens and communities have become involved in turning around years of neglect. We have named ourselves aft

Broad principles underpin engagement and a practical knowledge and adaptation of these will increase the effectiveness of your engagement activities.

Dept of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria major site on engagement

The dialogue designer tool

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a simple model for how to engage people in an online community? There are a number of concepts out there, but none of them are tailored to the social sector. We thought it would be worth sharing our approach: ‘The Community
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a simple model for how to engage people in an online community? There are a number of concepts out there, but none of them are tailored to the social sector. We thought it would be worth sharing our approach: ‘The Community

Complementing other forms of communication, Outreach (a form of marketing) can be used as a new and different form of communication to help engage communities with what public services have to offer.

This guide aims to provide a better understanding of w