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Phone: 510-339-3801 Fax: 510-339-3803 E-mail: jmasters@cencomfut.com |
Mailing Address: Center for Community Futures P.O. Box 5309 Berkeley, CA 94705 |
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|
 | Preliminary Agenda |
| Core Elements: Mission, Imperatives, Vision, and
Principles (Appendix A) |
| Research Themes: Community-Based Solutions (Appendix
B) |
ON-SITE PACKET MATERIALS
Participants
were provided a meeting packet containing the following materials:
| Final Agenda |
| Core Elements: Mission, Imperatives, Vision, and
Principles |
| Initiative Context presentation: Characteristics of
Successful Change (Appendix C) |
| Current state presentation: Highlights from the
research (Appendix D) |
| Research Themes: Community-Based Solutions |
| Participant List (Appendix E) |
| Project Staff List (Appendix F) |
MEETING AGENDA
Overarching
Goal: The goal of all of the working
sessions is to allow people from a variety of backgrounds and sectors to bring
their expertise to bear toward creating a fundamentally different model for
thinking about and addressing poverty.
Session
Objectives: This working session has five
objectives:
1)
Share a compelling case for change and articulate a vision and set of
principles upon which to build strategies to fundamentally change the way we
think about and address poverty as a nation.
2)
Review key themes of current community-based efforts to build capacity of
low-income individuals, families, and communities to compare/contrast with the
stated vision.
3)
Identify some key elements of a desired future state that describe what
it would look like in the ideal for communities to 1) develop local leadership;
2) create community engagement; and 3) successfully implement
‘whole-community’ strategies for addressing poverty.
4)
Identify some of the areas in which work must be undertaken (i.e. change
levers) in order to close the gap between existing and the ideal states.
5)
Brainstorm preliminary strategies for filling the gaps.
Wednesday,
August 25, 2004
3:00
– 4:00 Welcome and Overview by Clarence Carter:
The overall case for change and why we are here; the vision of the 21st
Century Model to Address Poverty and the
underlying principles for the development of the model.
4:00
– 4:45 Session Content and Context: Overview
of the overall initiative, an exploration of the current state and key themes
regarding community-based solutions to poverty, and large group discussion of
how we arrived at the current state from the participants’ perspectives.
4:45
– 5:00 Facilitative Strategy (Facilitator)
5:00
– 6:00 Break
6:00
– 7:30 Dinner
7:30
– 9:00 Small Group Work: Each small group
engages in visioning to describe what it would look like in the ideal for
communities to 1) develop local leadership; 2) create community engagement; and
3) successfully implement ‘whole community’ strategies for addressing
poverty. The goal of the small group work is to bring focus to a desired
future—built upon the principles—for community-based solutions to poverty.
9:00
– 9:45 Small Groups Report: Groups
present their work to the large group. Large group will not discuss presentation
content at this time, but will be asked to post questions and comments on wall
for discussion the next day.
9:45
– 10:00 Evening Close Out: Facilitator
leads interactive session about the work that’s been done so far, and what
remains for tomorrow.
Thursday,
August 26, 20
8:30
– 10:15 Large Group Discussion: Processing Small Group Work from Wednesday
Using
the notes taken by the participants the night before, the group will focus on
and discuss each of the focus areas presented. The focus will be on the
identification of the key elements of the desired future, not on problems with
the current state.
10:15
– 10:30 Break
10:30
– 11:45 Identification of Gap Areas and Change Levers: Identification
of what needs to change (i.e. levers for change and related considerations and
challenges) that would require work in order to get ‘there’ from ‘here.’
11:45
– 12:45 Lunch
12:45
– 2:15 Identification of Preliminary Change Strategies: Moving
from visioning and change levers to ideas for closing the gap.
2:15
– 3:00 Session Close Out and Next Steps: Discussion
of how the work that’s been done here will be synthesized to create the pieces
of a draft systemic change strategy and about how to begin the work of change.
Community-Based Solutions Working Session: Meeting Record 3
August
25, 2004: Afternoon
INTRODUCTIONS
(facilitated by Barbara Hulburt)
WELCOME
AND OVERVIEW BY CLARENCE CARTER
Clarence
provided the overall case for change and why we are here; the vision of the 21st Century
Model to Address Poverty and previewed the underlying principles for the
development of the model. The following is an amalgamation of the opening
remarks from all four working sessions.
As
America continually strives to form that ‘more perfect union’ envisioned by
our founding fathers, one of the key factors we have always struggled with as a
society is how to care for those in greatest need. For purposes of our work
here, we focus on the segment of our society that exists within the condition we
define as poverty.
Every
generation or so, our society recalibrates its thinking and approaches for
addressing poverty and it is clearly time for another recalibration. It is time
for us to change the way we think about and address poverty because:
| We know that as the number of people living in
poverty increases, it becomes more and more difficult for any society to
sustain itself. None of us wants that for our great nation. As long as
many of our citizenry remain under-optimized, our society can never reach
its full potential. |
| The most recent major recalibration was initiated
40 years ago via the 1964 “War on Poverty.” President Lyndon Johnson
believed that turning the power of the federal government loose on the issue
that we as a society could eliminate poverty. |
| While there is much progress to celebrate, we
clearly have fallen woefully short of the lofty objective of ameliorating
poverty. As a result of the “War on Poverty,” scores of programs
were created, the U.S. Poverty Index was established, unprecedented public
spending was dedicated to the objective, and a massive ‘helping’
industry was created. Though there have been impressive gains in many
important indicators of societal well-being, we have not shifted in our
approaches as quickly as the conditions have. |
| The U.S. Poverty Index, developed in the 1960’s
and based on an income/food consumption model, is no longer representative
of the conditions of poverty (e.g. cost of living, basic income needs,
economic trends, technological advancements, family structure and roles,
workforce trends, etc.). As the economic, social, technological—societal
conditions change the nature of poverty, we must also change the way our
society thinks about it and addresses it in order to remain economically,
socially, and morally sustainable as a society. |
| We are still using the income/consumption model and
the basic formula as designed in the 1960’s under vastly different
circumstances. Proposed reforms to the Poverty Index over the last three
decades to add other cost elements such as housing and health care and to
add other income sources such as the cash value of benefits have not been
successful, resulting in the continued use of a formula that has outlived
its efficacy as a accurate definition of the conditions of poverty. |
| We currently spend hundreds of billions of dollars
annually on assisting those in greatest need in America without an
acceptable return on investment. Unfortunately, since there is no shared
vision guiding and leveraging our investments toward a common objective. Our
spending is ad hoc, in categorical programs—with their own rules,
regulations, and objectives—which often work at cross purposes with other
programs and initiatives. Private initiatives often suffer from not having
enough resources to be truly effective. In the aggregate, our fragmented and
categorical approach results in the old adage; ‘If you don’t know where
you are going, any road will get you there.’ |
| The issue of poverty is best addressed at the
community level. The current construct in which the ways to address
poverty is prescribed at the Federal level fails to fully engage and empower
communities to develop their own vision for the future and the strategies
they need to get there. The uniqueness of America’s communities demands a
service strategy unique to each community’s objectives, resources, and
obstacles. |
| The current construct forces the needs of
individuals and families to fit into categorical programs that cannot
possibly anticipate or address the whole and interdependent nature of what
they need to make their lives work for them. Often the goals and
objectives of the various ‘helping programs’ work at cross purposes,
making a comprehensive set of services and support that would be effective
problematic at best. This approach is another example of not leveraging the
resources that are currently being expended on the issue and does not give
us a return on our investment. |
| The existing construct does not maximize the use of
technology that would provide for infinitely more efficient and effective
delivery of service and/or to reduce the need for the services in the first
place. The current categorical construct requires separate technological
infrastructures for each of the programs, which means that precious
resources are required to fund the separate infrastructures and resources
that could go directly to the individual or family needing assistance. It
means that helpers in the different program structures have difficulty
sharing vital information that would help serve individuals and families
more effectively. Furthermore, technology could be leveraged to allow many
decisions to be placed directly in the hands of the individual or family,
thus obviating the need for intermediaries. |
| The current helping system is financed principally
by government and philanthropy, despite the widely-used economic construct
of market solutions in most other advancement endeavors. Recognizing
that every sector has a role in addressing poverty and that market solutions
are encouraged in most facets of American problem-solving, we must
acknowledge that market-based strategies are significantly underutilized in
America’s helping system. |
All
of the above leave America with less than the most effective helping system. As
the economic, social, technological—societal conditions change the
nature of poverty, we must also change the way our society thinks about it and
addresses it in order to remain economically, socially, and morally sustainable
as a society. We need to create an urgency in society to do the work of this
recalibration, such that our society views eliminating poverty as:
| an exercise in developing self-sustaining conditions
at the individual, family, community, and societal levels, |
| a win-win exchange between society and individuals,
individuals and institutions, and |
| a way to create the harmonious conditions that allow
for continued innovation, economic growth, strong relationships,
non-violence, health, etc. |
As
the Director of the Office of Community Services, I draw on the history and
intent of my organization to help communities address issues of poverty—first
as the Office of Economic Opportunity, and in its subsequent evolutions as the
Community Services Administration, and now as the Office of Community
Services—to leverage the power of its mandate toward new constructs for
thinking about and addressing poverty.
We
have convened this group of the best and brightest thinkers to help begin a
social movement toward developing this new construct. Understanding that it will
be a long-term, complex endeavor, we recognize that we will not, over the course
of the next 24 hours of our initial working session, solve the problem.
Rather,
we are simply seeking to start the dialog by putting forward some guiding
principles upon which to build a new construct and by creating the “space”
in which to begin building it. Welcome, thank you for coming, and let’s get to
it.
(Nancy
Polend, Ed Strong, Tarryl Clark, and Lisa Cummins)
The
Characteristics of Successful Change presentation suggested that, since
the initiative is at its core the creation of systemic change, it is useful to
map its evolving strategies and activities to a framework that represents
components of successful change. The change model this initiative is using for
this purpose is based on the work of John Kotter and John Corlett. The
presentation made connections between the change model and the working session
activities in which participants would be engaging. The presentation also made
distinctions between what could reasonably be accomplished during the working
session and what was long-term, evolving work to be done over the next decade
and beyond. Acknowledgment of the uncertain, uncharted territory of this work
was made explicit.
The
second component of the Characteristics… presentation included the
operational flow of the project’s short-term activities, showing what had been
done to date, where the working session fit in, and what would come next.
The
subject-matter-expert presentation, Community-Based Solutions to Reducing
Poverty, provided an environmental scan of the way community-based solutions
have been thought about, planned for, and implemented up to the present time.
The presentation was based on research into what we know today about community
building and some of the major challenges facing communities as they try to
sustain growth initiatives.
Two
approaches to community building are coming together. There have been
traditional “place-based” strategies emphasizing changing physical
structures in a community and “people-based” strategies which have
emphasized developing human capital. Both appear to be necessary for sustainable
community building.
We
have learned that effective community building can only come from within the
community itself; it cannot be imposed from outside. Indigenous community
leadership is an essential element that must be intentionally, systematically,
and continuously developed.
Most
community building efforts today look at limited aspects of a community such as
housing, crime, education, or job preparation. Few efforts take a holistic view
of all aspects of a community. We do have some good examples of indicators of
community health but they too typically have a specific focus such as the health
and safety of children or economic competitiveness. The body of research on what
works and what can be sustained over time is typically not incorporated into
today’s initiatives – they are looked at often as projects with short
durations and limited expectations. The reality is that community building is a
long-term, evolutionary effort that grows as it produces positive results.
Effective
communities involve all stakeholders, including commercial enterprises, in
planning for its future. They have developed means of communicating with and
involving all stakeholders in and of the community across sector, age, gender,
income, and racial lines to come together toward a shared vision. Effective
communities have established coalitions of organizations with a common purpose.
All members of the community have and understand the roles they play and a
shared ownership of the future.
In
effective communities, resources that come into the community have been mapped
and the community’s strengths have been identified as the building blocks for
the future (as opposed to deficit identification). The resources that exist are
leveraged so that there is much greater return on the dollar and service
delivery is more integrated and person-focused.
FACILITATIVE
STRATEGY
The
facilitator set up the evening’s small group visioning activities by restating
the idea that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take
you there.” She also announced the rosters of each of the three small groups
and addressed various housekeeping and logistical items
Participants
took an evening break to check in to their rooms and convened in the dining room
at 6:15 for dinner. They were asked to dine with their small groups so that they
could get acquainted before beginning their work later in the evening.
August
25, 2004: Evening
After
dinner, each of the three small groups convened in their break-out rooms to
begin their task of envisioning the ideal conditions for communities to 1)
develop local leadership; 2) create community engagement; and 3) successfully
implement ‘whole-community’ strategies for addressing poverty. The goal of
the small group work was to bring focus to a desired future— built upon the
guiding principles of the 21st
Century Model to Address Poverty—for
community-based solutions to poverty.
Visioning
the Ideal: Local Leadership and Leadership Development
Participants:
Jeannie Chaffin, Sue Christie, Larry Lloyd, Gary Stokes, Debbi Speck, and Tarryl
Clark
Facilitator:
Nancy Polend
The
group began its visioning task with the following question: What does it look
like in the ideal if we have the leadership we need at the local level to
address poverty? The following lists represent the results of their
brainstorming.
| Organized neighborhood “clubs” |
 | Self-managed, convened, bottom-up |
| Positive influencers (i.e. Education, business, social
sciences) |
| Ability to make systems respond (make things happen) |
| Skill set to do this ( skills set to do the above
point: emphasis on “respond”) |
| Who stand up and take responsibility |
| All the way throughout community |
| …and
for having formal leadership come to THEM |
| Generational vibrancy/engagement in its own business |
| An understanding that there are a lot of leadership
“jobs” |
| Leads to sustainability |
| Leads to sustainability. |
| Willingness of folks with power are persuaded to
give some up |
| Facilitating dialogue between those who suffer and
those who have the power to change it |
| How do you get folks in power: |
 | To give some power up? |
| To find out what poor people are dealing with? |
| To have folks shape community? |
Large
group additions to small group work:
| Theological and cultural leadership needs recognition |
| You don’t lose power when you share it
Power is infinite |
| Leadership: Intentionality of grooming leaders through
education. |
| The role of belief in God plays in the restoration of
people’s communities faith (Role) |
| Leadership vs. Power : Empowering all participants |
| Relationships between power and leadership |
Facilitator:
Ed Strong
| We need to view communities as places of capacity –
not incapacities and make use of the capabilities identified. |
| All communities need vision statements – statements
of what they want to be. This is a universal concept that cuts across all
communities not just low income communities. |
| Engaged communities display the following
characteristics: |
| They engage in planning; they have a reason for
coming together; they are action-oriented |
| They have common aspirations |
| They engage in dialogues that surface multiple sides
of an issue |
| Everybody gets involved |
| The planning and dialogue is linked to an effective
delivery system – this is an enabling condition; it must be present for
ongoing engagement to be effective. |
| The delivery system provide effective services –
this also is an enabling condition necessary for the engagement process to
have staying power |
| There is reason for the engagement process to
continue. It has sustainability as an enabling condition |
The
discussion moved to a more general framing of what is meant by a community and
how current community planning efforts in some ways reflect the ideal but in
others do not. This list also begins to identify some of the challenges that
need to be overcome to have a robust community building process nationwide:
| In today’s world the definition of a community can
be very broad. It: |
| uses technology to communicate |
| is not always centered on meetings |
| other venues, particularly electronic means, are
employed |
| Those engaged in the process can see a defined task
that’s worth the effort |
| Character changes but not characteristics |
| There are places where there are examples of community
building focused on selected components or on limited areas; the challenge
is how to take it to scale so that all communities can be so defined and
community building is pervasive and sustained. |
| Communities
build on the successful techniques of entrepreneurs |
| There was a sense that there is a growing process of
engagement; it is evolving based on new needs and new techniques |
| A successful engagement process includes flattening
the hierarchy |
| A community must ask the question - what are we trying
to impact - do our actions and structures supports that impact? We have
simple tools to use in many different segments of the community |
| The boundaries of a community are self defined. |
| Good community engagement cuts across sectors and uses
non-traditional types of engagement |
| Measures must be relevant and understandable – can
we look ourselves in the mirror and say these things count |
| An engaged community would know what’s going on |
| An engaged community works from inside resources |
| Not dependent on outside help |
| People who come together around an issue – have
commitment – and can’t do it alone |
| Have fun together |
Group
Additions to Flipchart Information
| In discussing community engagement, we usually focus
on engaging the geographic community. But what about engaging other
sub-communities, e.g. the academic community in terms of providing technical
assistance? |
Visioning
the Ideal: Implementing Whole-Community Strategies
Facilitator:
Jeannine La Prad
What
Needs to Change Within Communities?
| Identify/engage sub communities within a community |
| Support structures need to be in place to support a
shared vision |
| Incentives need to be available to engage around a
shared vision |
| Work together and find energizers/motivators to
engage people |
| “Messy”/not neat and tight |
| “It’s not a program” |
What’s
Different in the Ideal Future State?
| Resources would flow to ideas or a shared community
vision |
| Talking occurs through a collective voice; leveraging
more resources |
| People/organizations are recognized for their
commitments/involvement |
| Relational energy is kept alive |
| Follow the energy |
| Problem solving model |
| Engage the whole group so that all ideas/views are
shared |
| Focus on the common ground |
| Focus on the potential future |
| Take personal responsibility |
| Need to communicate flexibility in
monitoring/evaluating (performance based) |
| Agenda built around passionate commitments to equal
opportunity and to a minimally decent life |
| Effective community structures will produce a reaction
from established political hierarchy therefore they must have strategies for
resisting or co-opting political actors |
SMALL
GROUP PRESENTATIONS TO LARGE GROUP
Each
small group presented their work to the large group. All of the groups used the
flipcharts they produced (as transcribed in the previous section of this
document) as talking points and generally presented the highlights of their
small group discussions. By design, the content of the presentations were not
discussed in the large group during this evening session. Participants were
instead instructed to write notes, comments, and questions on pieces of paper
and attach them to the “facilitation wall” to inform the full group
discussion to occur in the morning (see large group additions to flipcharts at
bottom of each small group section—above—for written comments).
Leadership
and Leadership Development in the Ideal: Talking Points
| Distinction between formal and informal leadership |
| Take responsibility for own community |
| Staying engaged in community issues |
| Ability to have influence/make change/have voice |
| Freedom for risk taking/creativity |
| Sustainable |
| People have a voice |
| Many people in the community are doing ‘leadership
jobs’ |
| Real leadership vs. management is present |
| Shared community vision |
Community
Engagement in the Ideal: Talking Points
When
the small group reported out its deliberations to the full group, it identified
a few key items from the list above to highlight. These included:
| The ideal community engagement is as untidy as this
report out |
| Effective community engagement has a universal quality
involving those in authority, those in need, and those with expertise in the
process |
| The entire process is guided by looking at
capabilities not incapacities |
| The process includes: developing common aspirations;
detailed planning; service strategies; and sustaining activities toward a
common vision |
| There is a focus on reciprocal responsibility where
everyone has someone to care for them and everyone has the opportunity to
care for others |
| The concept incorporates multiple sub-sets of an area
such as workplaces and school as communities within themselves. |
| The effective community knows what going on; has
access to information; and understands how to use measures of success that
relate to the issues and are simple to follow. |
| The effective community can communicate its needs and
intentions to the appropriate levels of power and has the power to act. |
| The effective community has fun together |
Whole-Community
Strategies in the Ideal: Talking Points
| Deals with issues more holistically |
| Relational energy is kept alive – follow the energy |
| Organic and flexible community problem solving |
| Recognizes and communicates success |
| Corporate sector is involved |
| Sustainable |
| People across socio-economic classes work together |
| Monitoring and evaluation mechanism for determining
progress is in place |
EVENING
CLOSE OUT: CLARENCE CARTER
Clarence
closed out the evening by thanking everyone for their hard work and sharing that
he was both energized and exhausted.
August
26, 2004: Morning
The
morning began with an opportunity for participants to reflect on the work of the
day before and the themes that were common to the “ideals” presented by all
of the small groups. The facilitator spent some time preparing participants for
their tasks for the day and revisited the definition of success for the meeting.
Success
is walking away with…
| A set of components that define a fully empowered
community |
| An understanding of what needs to change |
| A start on specific strategies |
| Some kindred souls in this effort moving forward who
can help make real change. |
Tasks
for the day:
| Review and discuss in the large group the principles
upon which this effort is based. |