Week 5 Chapter 9: Identifying and Building Assets, Developing Community Capacity, Knowing your Stakeholders, and Sustaining Programming

Sustainability: 5 Key Factors

• Identifying assets

• Building assets

• Community capacity

• Knowing your stakeholders

• Sustaining programming

Conflicts that Impact Sustainability: Sources of Conflict

• Development

• Resource

  • Ex: What if I want to install craft cabinets in the multipurpose room where I currently hold groups, but the recreation therapist wants to use the space for indoor soccer, pingpong, and other active sports and games during winter when outdoor play is not possible.

  • We will both worry about how our plans for the space may create conflict.

• A conflict between private interests and the public good could arise when a special interest group wants to make use of public domain

Conflicts that Impact Sustainability: Need for Balance

• Economics

• Equity

• Environment

• There is a need for balance between the dimensions of economy, environment, and equity or social justice. When these are not balanced, conflicts can arise.

Sustainability Plans

• Flexible

• Proactive

• Goal directed

• Action oriented

• Temporary funds are helpful to start-up a new program, but will not guarantee sustainability

• Working with others in the community is necessary, and listening to the insider perspective is a valuable tool for understanding what may or may not be feasible in their particular community

• Work together with the community to set attainable short and long-term goals, then determine actions necessary to meet them

• Make sure your plans are flexible, proactive, goal directed and action oriented

What can a Repair Cafe do for Community Development?

• Community development

  • Solving problems

  • Building a sense of community

  • Improving quality of life

  • Building capacity

• Capacity building

  • Create sense of community

  • Gain levels of commitment

  • Improve ability to solve problems

  • Increase access to resources

Repair Cafe and Building Capital: Social Capital

• Important relationships

  • i.e. being a volunteer repairer

Repair Cafe and Building Capital: Reciprocity

• Volunteers get as much as they give, benefits are shared

Repair Cafe and Building Capital: Human Capital

• Uncovering hidden knowledge and skills within the community

Stakeholders

• Authority

• Responsibility

• Oversight

• Funders

• Advisory Boards

• Program managers

• Administrators

• Participants/recipients

• Disadvantaged

• In/direct interest

4 Strategies to Identify and Build Community Capacity

• Leadership development

• Organizational development

• Community organizing

• Organizational networks

Leadership Development

• Opportunity - training - mentoring

• Involves providing community members with opportunities to take on leadership, even in small ways– and providing any training and mentoring that will enable and empower them to lead

• Can be taking on major roles, or being responsible for a very specific aspect of programming

Organizational Development

• Establish/improve systems, board management, member recruitment, resource allocation

• Might involve

  • Creating policies and procedures

  • Establishing a board of director or advisors and meeting with them about operations, vision and goals

  • Figuring out how to recruit volunteers and members, and determining how to gather and/or distribute resources

Community Organizing

• Awareness, consensus organizing, relationship development, partnerships

• Involves raising awareness of the program and its goals

• Might mean writing a press release, posting signs in the community, or spreading the word on social media platforms that are popular in the targeted community

Organizational Networks

• Interorganizational connections, access to outside resources

• Within or surrounding a community

• Helps make the best use of available resources- especially when there is a shared vision, or mutually beneficial activities that would support more than one organization

Recognize Needs. Recognize and Build Assets

• Needs assessment

• Asset Assessment

Needs Assessment

• To identify what is wrong or missing or not attended to in a community

• Health disparities

• Resource inequities

• Social injustice

• Occupational justice

Asset Assessment

• Strengths-based approach

  • Helps people see what they have that is working we and how to use those skills and assets to their advantage– often to make up for weaknesses in other areas– but the focus is on their strengthsValues and empowers the community

• Asset mapping