C. Cultivating Community and Political Support

PART ONE: Engaging Community Support

Five Steps Toward Community Mobilization and Revitalization

The following steps are intended to identify some of the major challenges facing nonprofit community builders and are only the first steps down the path of engaging the community's interest and mobilizing the entire community toward revitalization. They include:

1. Identifying capacities and assets of individuals, civic associations, and local institutions. 2. Building relationships among local people and businesses for mutually beneficial problem solving within the community. 3. Mobilizing the community's assets for economic development and information sharing 4. Building a broad representation of residents to develop a vision and a plan 5. Leveraging activities, investments, and resources from outside the community to support asset-based local development.

Take a look at these steps in more detail:

Step 1 - Identifying capacities and assets This process begins by asking the question "what people or businesses does the city have to help us solve our problems or help support our housing development project?" Make a list of EVERYONE that you can think of that may be interested in supporting your project - it can be whittled down. Think big in terms of whom could be on the team. Step 2 - Building relationships When strong relationships are formed in a community, it becomes stronger and more self-reliant. When people who are well-known in the community are linked with "strangers", there will be less people in the community who are not involved, and more that are. New people bring to the table a new set of expectations and a new set of ideas and experiences. When you involved people who have never before been a part of a community group, you begin to cultivate individuals who now act as problem solvers, and not critics. Gradually, a web of ties develops among all of the other assets that the group brings to the table. As a result, residents begin to look to each other for assistance and expertise before they rely on someone outside the group. Step 3 - Mobilizing the community's assets Once you have identified WHO should be involved in the development project and HOW you should be cultivating these people, you should take action - this is called mobilization. The first mobilization effort should center on gaining economic power and support ("show me the money") from local people and businesses. Then, each participant should be urged to either commit some personal funds or assist in providing the names of people or organizations that can commit funds, time, personnel, or equipment to the nonprofit or the project. In addition, the nonprofit developer should be assessing the economic climate of the neighborhood and look at other possibilities. Can we engage the support of the local college or trade school? Can we involve the local manufacturing plant in our project? Can we help connect people with potential jobs or volunteer opportunities? Can we borrow items we need instead of renting or buying them? How can the people and businesses in this neighborhood support each other to provide more for itself and not rely on others to do this? Step 4 - Build a broad representation of residents to develop a vision and a plan Who are we and what do we value most? Where are we now and where do we want to be in five or ten years? These simple questions lie at the heart of the community building challenge - for without a SHARED vision, the very hard work of regenerating a community is even harder to sustain. If your community or nonprofit development agency is not involved in the planning process for the neighborhood, you should be. Input from the residents and "locals" create a vision that can help move a project forward. This is a group of people who have "bought in" and will publicly support the project. This process is called consensus building, and usually leads to the development of the plan. For the asset-based community builder, the community planning process presents a great opportunity to set the stage for the entire regeneration project. From the beginning, an orientation toward finding and mobilizing local capacities should form the core of the process. In fact, these simple commitments (agreed to at the beginning of the planning process) will help ensure that the community planning effort becomes a magnet which attracts and coordinates all of the local capacities brought to the project. Step 5 - Leveraging activities, investments, and resources Only when all of the people, associations, and institutions have been included and only when these assets begin to rely on their relationships with each other for solving problems should you begin to consider leveraging resources from outside sources. When a community begins to mobilize its internal assets, it is no longer content to depend on others to make things happen. Rather, this mobilized community now offers opportunities to form real business partnerships, and to contact investors who are interested in working with groups who can help them achieve a return on their investments. Bridges and relations that nonprofits have already built with outside public, private and other nonprofit service providers, combined with the relationships which local institutions such as churches, schools, parks and libraries have as part of their larger identity, contribute invaluable support to the community building process.

PART TWO: Engaging Political Support

Why should we engage political (government) support for our nonprofit program?

Local government at all levels aspires to assist in the community development process. They are the trustees of many resources that can help neighborhoods reinvent themselves from the inside out. Often, however, government funds are not always directed to the programs that do the most good or are the most effective in helping the residents of certain communities - and that is why it is so crucial to involve the local government or municipality in the process of your nonprofit community development project.

Effective support of asset-based development requires that local governments shift their role from defining problems to creating solutions. This theory requires public employees to act as public servants.

How do we get the local government to "buy in"?

It is often difficult to gain the support of the local government for your project simply because the demand may exceed the supply in terms of having "too many projects and not enough staff". In addition, it is even more difficult to involve state and federal governments in your project because the distance and time constraints prohibit being aware of the projects and participating in them. Nonetheless, it IS possible to have government support on all levels for your project if you can get the local municipality to adopt these three important policies:

1. Gathering data on local assets State and federal governments usually require local municipalities to add up their deficiencies, problems, and needs in order to access public investments. As a result, the investments usually go to meet the most pressing needs. A better policy would seek data regarding local assets and their development with indications of how government money would support the local initiative. 2. Investing in the local economy In lower income neighborhoods, two-thirds of all government expenditures generally go to health and human service providers and businesses providing commodities and housing. Because of the economic benefits of these expenditures are not usually local residents or their businesses, an asset-based investment strategy would shift policies toward insuring that a substantial percentage of government expenditures provide direct economic benefit in the form of local jobs, contracts, and purchases. 3. Removing barriers to local innovation State and federal governments consist of hundreds of departments, divisions, and bureaus which each administer distinct programs. At the neighborhood level, groups seeking to develop a comprehensive and integrated asset development strategy are faced with hundreds of categories of outside public resources, each with its own set of "red tape". As a result, nonprofit developers are urged to contact their local elected officials to find out how to request funds from the best source, and how to direct these requests with waivers that will allow for some flexibility in the application rules to help the process move more quickly.

PART THREE - Engaging Investor Support

Why is it important to seek the support of investors for the nonprofit developer?

In a nutshell, it is because investors have the money to give to your project and they want to be associated with "neighborhood oriented" activities that gives their company a good name in the community. Most funders of community activities ask groups to submit requests for funding based on a "needs" or "problem" assessment since they want to send the message to the community that they expect the local residents to maximize the use of their own skills and resources to help solve a problem. Often they may be interested in providing some cash to help them do this.

How do we encourage investors to take interest in our organization and providing fundingfor our project?

1. Clearly identify the skills, abilities, capacities, and assets that your organization provides that will contribute positively to the betterment of a community. 2. Clearly identify the capacity of the residents of the community, the civic organizations, and indicate how both will become involved in your project. 3. Clearly indicate how your nonprofit project will mobilize, utilize, enhance, or expand the local economy or provide "quality of life" in the neighborhood. 4. Clearly indicate how your nonprofit will help contribute to building the local economy. 5. Clearly indicate how previous investments of significant resources have been used in the past and show they have made MARKED improvements in the quality of life in the neighborhood.

Next: C1. Key Factors to Gauge Support for Your Project

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