1. Building Community Capacity
For:
Foundations of Community Vitality Workshop and/or Resource Packet
Presented By:
Steve Grabow, Professor and Community Development Educator
UW-Extension, Jefferson County Office
Will Andersen, Professor and Community Development Educator
UW-Extension, Iron County Office
Resource: David G. Hinds, AICP Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin-Extension
DRAFT 7/31/2014

2. Introduction to Building Community Capacity
Review of… Community Transformation Community Capacity Model

3. Community Development…
Includes the idea of transforming communities
Which, in turn, includes the concept of building community capacity

4. Transforming Communities
Development in the community
Community is seen as a given
Development is seen as enhancing this existing entity
Clearly defined outcomes, and their achievement means success and the end of development
Development of the community
Enhances the social realm and the relationships between people
A process of interaction, communication, and collective mobilization
Accomplished through community action and the purposive interaction of community members

5. Community Transformation Occurs When a Community…
Develops a sufficient organizational and network base that enables effective participation, communication, and collaboration
Acquires and becomes proficient in the knowledge, abilities, skills, and tools necessary to address successfully challenges and achieve desired purposes

6. Community Capacity Mancini, Martin & Bowen
The degree to which people in a community demonstrate a sense of shared responsibility for the general welfare for the community and its individual members
The degree to which they also demonstrate collective competence by taking advantage of opportunities for addressing community needs and confronting situations that threaten the safety and well-being of community members

7. Exercise Question 1:
What are the various “communities” that you regularly work with as an Extension professional?

8. Types of Community Development Knowledge
Knowledge about substantive matters of an issue (e.g. child development, economic development, farm management, housing)
Knowledge about how communities are identified and defined
Knowledge about individuals, organizations, and networks and how they function
Knowledge about purposeful action strategies (e.g. planning, learning research, evaluation, etc.)
Local knowledge

9. The Importance of Purpose
The concept of purpose is essential to any successful effort
Purpose means “intent”
In community development purpose means focus, decisions, and consensus around what is to be done
Purpose also brings content or concern into what is to be done

10. A Model for Community Capacity
Community Environment
Community Structures
Purpose-Based Action

11. Community Environment
The capacity and ability to define a community, describe and understand its unique environment, and take responsibility for community issues and common purposes.

12. Sense of Community Chaskin
…a degree of connectedness among members and a recognition of mutuality of circumstance
One component may be the existence of a threshold level of collectively held values, norms, and vision
It may include both an affective dimension (including a sense of trust, ownership, belonging, and recognized mutuality) and a cognitive dimension (including ways in which community members ascribe meaning to their membership in a group)
Shared social interests and characteristics (language, customs, class, ethnicity, etc.) can be used to define a community

13. Community S.A. Small & A. Supple
…social relationships that individuals have based on group consensus, shared norms and values, common goals and feelings of identification, belonging and trust.

14. Basic Way to Define Communities
Communities of place
Defined geographic boundaries
Communities of interest
Groups of people united, cooperating, or interacting with regard to a common topic, concern, interest, or shared history, culture, ethnicity, etc.
Communities of practice
Groups of persons in a particular profession or discipline interacting around their common interest

15. What is the nature of communities?
Some sources say communities are forms or structure.
Other sources try to say they are function or process.
In reality, though, they are, in themselves, neither.
S.A. Small & A. Supple describe communities as “setting.”
A more generic, systems-related term is “environment.”

16. Community Environment
Communities are not the means but the milieu or context in which form is created and function carried out
Communities have unique environments
The idea of communities should be thought of in the broadest possible ways

17. Community Structures
The capacity and ability to create, manage, and maintain appropriate community structures that address community issues and achieve community purposes.

18. Definition of Structure Chaskin
First he asks “Where does community capacity reside, and how is it engaged?”
In this sense he is viewing structure as the first part of his definition of capacity: the idea of containing (holding, storing)
He answers his question by proposing that capacity resides in three levels of social interaction or social agency:
The individual
Organizations
Networks of association

19. Forms of Community Capital
Individuals – Human capital
Organizations – Organizational capital
Networks – Social capital

20. Interim Structures
Created to accomplish short-term purposes or as a means of creating permanent structures
Created at a stage in community development when there is no need or desire for a permanent structure

21. Interim Structures - Examples
Study committees to identify and frame community issues
Informal sponsor groups to gather resources for and legitimize special projects
Study groups to gather information and conduct community learning
Planning & design committees to modify or create new community systems or propose changes in policies
Special task forces to investigate and correct specific problems

22. Community Structures
Are not part of community environment—they are (or should be) created as a part of a solution.
Are form, and need to be created following the determination of function.
Are not what needs to be done; they are part of how something gets done.

23. Exercise Question 2:
What are examples of “community structures” that you work with and what is a typical need for Extension assistance?

24. Purpose-Based Action
The capacity and ability to take appropriate actions to address community issues and achieve community purposes.

25. Purposeful Activities
Diagnosis should lead to determining which purposeful activity should be pursued…
Learning
Research
Planning & Design
Evaluation
Operating & Supervising

26. Fundamental Purposeful Activities
Operating & Supervising – operate and supervise an existing solution or system
Planning & Design – create or restructure a situation-specific solution or system
Research – search for causes, seek generalizations, and attempt to disprove hypotheses
Evaluation – evaluate performance of previous solutions or other purposeful activities
Learning – gain skills and acquire knowledge about existing information and generalizations

27. Secondary Purposeful Activities
Make a decision
Maintain a standard of achievement
Resolve a conflict
Make a model of or abstract a phenomenon
Develop creative ideas
Establish priorities
Practice and exercise
Focus and motivate individual efforts

28. Skills
A learned power of doing something competently, a developed aptitude or ability
A combination of applied knowledge, experience and learned behaviors
Effective use involves knowing what to do, why something is to be done, how to do it, and also when and where to do it

29. Some Important Community Development Skills
Learning skills
Teaching skills
Leadership skills
Group membership skills
Listening skills
Interviewing skills
Diagnostic skills
Facilitation skills
Organizational skills
Analytical skills
Conflict resolution skills
Computer skills

30. Tools
A tool is something used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession.
“Tools are relatively small, often parts of a larger unit; they do something; each is designed for a very specific purpose.” Nancy Tague
Tools are not designed to be used singly, as ends onto themselves. They generally do not provide any context or sense of overall strategy.
Tools are most effectively used in combination, in the context of the overall strategy.

31. Examples of Tools Generate ideas and information
Brainstorming, surveys, observation tools
Organize information
Hierarchies, diagrams, classifications
Aid decision making
Decision matrix, decision tree
Analyze data
Statistical tools, Pareto Charts
Evaluate performance
Pre-test/post-test analysis, performance index, surveys, focus groups
Enable learning
Practice exercises, learning/study circles, systems thinking
Involve community stakeholders
Nominal Group Technique, Charette, World Café, public meetings
Manage projects
Gantt Charts, PERT/CPM

32. SUMMARY

33. A Community Capacity Model

34. Community Capacity Elements
The capacity and ability to define a community, describe and understand its unique environment, and take responsibility for community issues and common purposes.
The capacity and ability to create, manage, and maintain appropriate community structures that address community issues and achieve community purposes.
The capacity and ability to take appropriate actions to address community issues and achieve community purposes.

35. Exercise Question 3:
What are ways that you have the most impact in applying one or more of the purposeful activities with community structures?

36. Exercise Question 4:
How does this Community Capacity Model help conceptualize capacity building?

37. Exercise Question 5:
What are some ideas to enhance the capacity of community leaders and key “communities”?