Why Community Engagement Matters
Charles Weathers is the founder of The Weathers Group, a management consulting firm specializing in organizational performance and leadership development. Charles will be speaking to Kansas City on 'Cultivating CommUNITY' at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center on August 11, as part of our National Speaker Series. Learn more and register here.
In the various seats I’ve occupied - Development Director, Board Member, Pastor, Consultant, and others - the one word that inevitably surfaces in conversations, at some point, was “community”. And, to be clear, the word doesn’t surface alone, it is often used as a descriptor to help define and frame an action, purpose, or people:
In the various seats I’ve occupied - Development Director, Board Member, Pastor, Consultant, and others - the one word that inevitably surfaces in conversations, at some point, was “community”. And, to be clear, the word doesn’t surface alone, it is often used as a descriptor to help define and frame an action, purpose, or people:
- Community Engagement
- Community Development
- Community Stakeholders
- Community Members
- Community Leaders
- Community Indicators
- Community Liaison
- Community Awareness
- Community Organizations
- Community Building
- Community Needs
- Community Resources
- How can we engage the community?
- What do we mean when we say community?
- Is the community defined by geographic boundaries?
- What does the community need?
- What does the community want?
- Who do we know in the community?
- Why does one community thrive and another struggles when they’re right next to each other?
- How do we restore trust with and in community, when trust has been broken?
- What assumptions are we making about community?
- There’s a new Community Development project to transform a neighborhood. A few new buildings were built, some old buildings received a facelift, and a new sign was even put at the entrance of the primary access road, so people knew something had changed. You visit the community a year later and the buildings are unoccupied, the facelift has fallen, and that new sign is hidden by overgrown weeds.
Before we decide, we must learn. Before we act, we must connect. Before we build, we must explore.
Before we do anything, we must be intentional and clear about who is included in the “we”, we are talking about.
Cultivating CommUNITY is a relationship-centric, inclusive, co-creative process that requires work. And, the bulk of the work required is working on our own mindset. It demands that we shift from doing something “for” or “to” others, to genuinely working “with” others. Too often we simply bring people in to endorse what has already been decided versus ensuring that people in and of the community have a voice and vote on the decision and all the preceding work necessary to arrive at an inclusive decision. This simple, but too often overlooked step, is critical to Cultivating CommUNITY because it helps prevent and avoid the Us vs Them energy that still manifests when nonprofits and government agencies embark upon efforts to “fix” the community.
If you’ve been working in, around, with, and through community, I can pretty much guarantee you’ve participated in or witnessed the Us vs Them dynamic, along with so many other ubiquitous challenges associated with this work. Something has to change, however, each of us must consider how WE may need to change first.
I look forward to sharing the strategies and approaches of Cultivating CommUNITY that drive change within you - strategies and approaches that both challenge and affirm, heal and disrupt, build and dismantle.
See you next week!
Charles Weathers
Charles Weathers will be speaking with Kansas City on August 11 as part of our National Speaker Series. Learn more and register here.
Stay up to Date
Get Nonprofit Connect's new blog posts and latest insights in your inbox. Subscribe to The Link weekly email newsletter.
