COMMUNITY COALITION BUILDING

Workshop Objectives  Describe effective community coalition building  What?  Why?  How?  Key challenges and success factors  Leadership  Membership  Asset mapping & elevator speech

What is a community coalition? Community Coalitions

What is a community coalition?  Group of diverse individuals or organizations  Similar values and interests  Combine resources (human and material)  Pursue a common goal  Aim to improve the community  Usually a temporary alliance

What do coalitions do?  Identify needs  Enhance awareness  Stimulate involvement  Develop a shared vision and plans for action  Foster networking and collaboration  Mobilize people to take action  Change practices Source: Nemours Health & Prevention Services  Promote service integration  Influence policy and legislation  Pool existing resources  Develop new resources  Provide community with information  Sustain long-term focus on an issue

Why are coalitions built?  Pooling resources and working together makes coalitions:  more visible  more powerful  more capable of advancing their interests  Shared response can elevate an important community concern to an urgent concern  Diverse expertise and connections are available to solve complex issues  Builds a lasting base for change

Potential Challenges  Turf issues  Domination by one group  Poor links to the community  Failure to provide leadership  Inadequate planning  Poor communication Source: Nemours Health & Prevention Services & Physicians for Human Rights

Success Factors  Be inclusive and participatory  Set unifying goals and a common strategy  Respect each group’s self interest  Use diversity of each group  Communicate openly and often  Make explicit agreements  Structure decision-making carefully  Distribute credit fairly Source: Physicians for Human Rights

How are coalitions built? 1. Establish vision of success 2. Identify and recruit stakeholders (groups and individuals) 3. Clarify mission and goals 4. Specify underlying facts regarding the issue 5. Create a structure (i.e., work groups) 6. Anticipate and plan for obstacles 7. Evaluate results 8. Celebrate accomplishments

Who should be involved?  Consider:  diversity of the group  size of the group  type of members  Make a list of potential partners and prioritize the list  Recruit members  Orient members

Asset Mapping

Membership Guidelines  Potential coalition members what to know:  Mission and goals  Time commitments  Resource commitments  Roles, responsibilities, and recognition  Aid recruitment  Enhance role clarity  Create consistent participation levels  Provides base for accountability  Serve as team-building experience What are membership guidelines? Why are membership guidelines important?

Elevator Speech

Leadership Guidelines  Effective coalition leaders need to:  Commit to group  Contribute to goals and process  Have enthusiasm, energy, inspiration, and expertise  Take responsibility  Deliver on commitments  Aid recruitment  Enhance role clarity  Create consistent participation levels  Provides base for accountability  Ensures cohesion toward progress What are leadership guidelines? Why are leadership guidelines important?

Initial Meeting 1. Bring interested groups together. 2. Prepare a written agenda. 3. Describe the problem. 4. Work through a team building exercise. 5. Solicit their involvement. 6. Ask them to make a specific commitment. 7. Develop a mission statement and goals for the coalition. 8. Elect a facilitator for future meetings and develop and agenda. 9. Follow-up after the meeting: stay in touch. 10. Send a brief summary of the first meeting.

Coalition Benefits  Improve the community's quality of life by:  developing the community's local planning capacity  increasing collaborative problem solving  promoting greater cooperation  developing the advocacy capacity of the community  increasing information access

Coalition Building Workbooks Key Links  The Community Tool Box,  Getting Started Workbook, mobi.htm mobi.htm  Sustainable Communities: A Guide to Community Asset Mapping, index.htm index.htm

Good Luck!