conpairse

smaet.pdf

Home >Social Science homework help >Sociology homework help >conpairse

Working Together 59

What Is Working Together? Lesson number one about working together: never assume that a large group gathered in one place means that the individuals have worked together, will work together, or even might work together for any reason. Breakfast meetings with an outside visitor can usually draw a crowd, but assume nothing. Words such as collabora- tion and partnership are cast about regularly, but they mean more than a casual meeting or conversation. Working together is the ability of a group of people to develop a relationship of trust that will allow different perspectives to be heard and discussed with ultimate agreement to take action on the issue. That’s more than a one-time gathering or an e-mail trail; it is a consistent, sustained relationship over time. Joining together requires trust and rela- tionships as well as process and information. It is never an abstrac- tion. What might work or could work or should work only works when people actually do something together.

The spectrum of working together usually includes some version of cooperation, partnerships, coalition building, comprehensive community initiatives, and collaboration. The most interesting new work has a larger scope and more and varied stakeholders result- ing in better outcomes.

Cooperation is an inherent quality and characteristic that is common to all four of these organizing groups. It can be its own kind of relationship, but often that includes simply sharing infor- mation, jointly sponsoring events, or not blocking something.

Partnerships are quite common community structures formed between individuals, organizations, government agencies, and businesses that want to combine forces for results that match their own organization’s best interests. In a survey done in 2001, In It for the Long Haul: Community Partnerships Making a Difference by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change (2001), with business, govern- ment, and nonprofit leaders in the two hundred largest cities, respondents cited a number of payoffs for partnerships beyond just the organizations involved or the specific issue addressed by the partnership:

1. Community partnerships raise visibility on local issues: it’s hard for communities to solve problems they don’t know about.

Morse, S. W. (2014). Smart communities : How citizens and local leaders can use strategic thinking to build a brighter future. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-21 16:39:44.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 4 . Jo

h n W

ile y

& S

o n s,

I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

60 Smart Communities

2. Partnerships can help communities set priorities for the allocation of resources.

3. Partnerships can unleash new talents and resources to address old and new problems and opportunities.

According to these leaders, partnership activities include information sharing and financial and in-kind support, but the critical function is tackling tough issues together. Leaders in all sectors saw this as essential to community success. Almost three- quarters of the business and nonprofit leaders and 90 percent of the government leaders said that they work with other groups in the community to address important issues. Although the partner- ships take different forms and directions, the survey found that they clearly were forged around key issues. Specifically, nonprofit, government, and business leaders say that they communicate with different sectors on a regular basis; they provide direct services to community organizations beyond giving; create a culture of caring within their respective organizations with more than 50 percent of businesses and 40 percent of local governments giving employ- ees paid time off to volunteer; and finally, all sectors say that they organize employee participation programs to help in the com- munity through walk-a-thons, food drives, and so forth. Further, a clear majority of leaders serve on boards and invite representa- tives from the other sectors to serve on these boards. Partnerships, according to these executives, are alive and well and making a significant difference in the life of the community.

Coalitions are the third type of joint work strategy. Coalitions can be informal or formal arrangements that bring diverse groups together for joint action on a single issue or a set of issues. Members may have very different motivations for joining the coalition. Coalitions can be short-term or long-term, but through- out members retain their individual identities, goals, and mis- sions. Coalitions are formed for joint action to advocate, to stop something, or to start something. Groups gather with a wide array of stakeholders around issues such as traffic control, crime, envi- ronmental concerns, corporate practices—you name it. For example, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has forty-four civic, professional, and religious organizational members, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Church of the Brethren,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 4 . Jo

h n W

ile y

& S

o n s,

I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Working Together 61

and the YWCA, and more than one hundred thousand individual members. A study on the sustainability of coalitions done for the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 distinguished coalitions from other kinds of community organizations in three ways: 1) community coalitions can create collaborative capacity among diverse organizations; 2) they help communities build social capital; and 3) they are catalysts and agents for change around a range of issues. The study identified six characteristics that impact coalition functioning and effectiveness. These are the quality and consistency of leadership; a broad and engaged mem- bership; a governance structure in place; processes for communi- cation, decision making, and conflict resolution; a strategic vision for the coalition with complementary goals and objectives; and context and history within the community (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011).

Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCI) is the fourth type of community process and organizational structure that has gained popularity in community development over the last two decades. It is a comprehensive strategy that empowers communities, neigh- borhoods, and community members to rely on each other, share information, and work on initiatives together. It emphasizes “com- munity building” as both a means of neighborhood transforma- tion and a principal outcome (Chaskin, 1999). CCIs do joint work on issues. They build and nurture their own capacity by bringing together all the available resources and skills to address common problems and meet opportunities. This approach builds social capital and gives communities more options for decision making. According to Chaskin (1999), community capacity building is

. . . the interaction of human, organizational, and social capital existing within a given community that can be leveraged to solve collective problems and improve or maintain the well-being of a given community. It may operate through informal social processes and/or organized efforts by individuals, organizations, and the networks of associations among them and between them and the broader systems of which the community is a part. (p. 4)

A well-known example is the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Boston, which was formed to combat the negative influences on and treatment of the neighborhood. The Dudley

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 4 . Jo

h n W

ile y

& S

o n s,

I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

62 Smart Communities

Street Neighborhood literally had become a dumping ground for old cars, old furniture, and even old meat. Community members had little control over crime, arson, or dumping. Working with the city, the Riley Foundation, other local and national partners, and each other, the community found its voice and got its neigh- borhood back (Medoff and Sklar, 1994).

While places have had transformative experiences, many community-building efforts have fallen short of what an Aspen Institute report called “population-level changes.” There have been individual improvements and even significant physical improvements, but the efforts have not moved the needle for the whole community. Expectations have exceeded accomplishments to date. But as John McKnight and Peter Block write in The Abun- dant Community (2010), “The starting point in every transforma- tion is to think differently . . . . The culture of community is initiated by people who value each other’s gifts and are seriously related to each other. It takes time, because serious relationships are based upon trust . . . .” (pp. 115 and 117). This makes a more comprehensive vision integral to revitalization efforts.

Collaboration is the fifth type of community structure. Collabo- ration means simply “to work together,” but its larger definition has a clear set of requirements and assignments (Chrislip and Larson, 1994, p. 5). Both a process and a goal for community work, collaboration allows multiple stakeholders in a community to work together toward a common purpose, building on a com- munity’s resources, talents, and assets. Understandably, this basic definition is the first step in the journey. All too often, communi- ties declare that this initiative or that is a collaboration; it rarely is at first glance. Collaboration is more often talked about than actually done! It is one of the hardest community efforts to orga- nize and execute but can be the most effective. It is difficult for groups and individuals to “give up” the control necessary to form a genuine collaboration. Collaborations differ from partnerships and coalitions in that participating organizations actually merge their financial and organizational functions at some level. The sharing of resources, risks, and rewards is a foreign concept for those organizations that want to go it alone with the hope of having the spotlight shine on only their work and efforts. This strategy is fraught with difficulty, as the challenges communities

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 4 . Jo

h n W

ile y

& S

o n s,

I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .