Posts Tagged ‘Neighboring’

Seven Essential Principles of Neighboring

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

Yesterday’s post introduced the idea of neighboring. It’s a place-based approach to community problem solving that focuses on individuals’ talents as a resource to improve their neighborhoods.

We’ve found seven ways that individuals, organizations, and businesses can use when working with communities to engage and empower local volunteers and to build effective partnerships with their community. Whether you’re planning a short-term volunteer project or a long-term community initiative, these tips can help bring about real change!

1. Try to understand the language and nature of volunteering

  • Understand the history and culture of the community.
  • Include youth, immigrant communities, seniors, faith communities, and refugees.

2. Overcome barriers to volunteering.

  • Understand the community obstacles. What has traditionally kept people from volunteering?
  • Understand the organizational barriers. Have organizations tried to work in the community previously? What made their actions successful?

3. Empower the community.

  • Create space for residents to own their issues and develop solutions.
  • Support residents to witness the benefits of their involvement.
  • Engage residents in the decision-making process.
  • Mobilize residents around issues that impact them directly.
  • Host community meetings and provide examples of success.

 

4. Cultivate community members’ skills and talents.

  • Acknowledge and build on existing community assets.
  • Help members identify their own skills and talents.
  • Allow residents to have a real role in the partnership.
  • Encourage residents to plan and lead projects.
  • Show the relationship between residents’ skills and project outcomes.

 

5. Strengthen existing community leadership.

  • Cultivate leadership and the internal capacity of community members to lead and engage in community activities.
  • Help develop leadership and recognize different leadership styles.
  • Identify volunteer leadership development training.
  • Encourage leaders to have a leadership role in the partnership.

 

6. Acknowledge that volunteering is an exchange.

  • Offer volunteers something in exchange for the time, talents, and efforts they contribute to bettering their communities. A simple, honest, thank you note is enough to recognize each person’s contribution, but you can always do more.
  • Help people see the benefits of the work that has been done, and the work that they can do.
  • Understand that it’s okay to receive something in exchange for volunteering.
  • Develop mechanisms by which residents receive tangible outcomes such as tutoring, child care subsidies, and job opportunities.

7. Ensure community readiness.

Participate in building the internal capacity of communities to partner with outside organizations and engage residents in community activities.

  • Be patient; community building and resident involvement takes time.
  • Remember that relationship building is a process.
  • Be flexible; survival issues demand time and attention.
  • Help communities resolve conflict that may be preventing involvement.
  • Set your community up for success but accept if it is not ready.

Have you used neighboring practices in your community? Let u know what worked for you in the comments!

 

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Won’t You Be My Neighbor? A Place-Based Approach to Volunteering

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Neighbors help neighbors.

Every day, they use their time and their gifts to strengthen families and communities.

Many, especially those living in under-resourced communities, work hard to deal with the challenges of communities where unemployment, violence, and drugs are taking their toll. In the face of these obstacles, community residents look to each other for the connections to vital resources that will improve their odds of succeeding.

The good news is that volunteering is already present in under-resourced communities; it is crucial to the lives of everyone in them.

A neighbor guides children across a busy intersection on the way to school.

A young friend makes meals for an elderly woman confined to a wheelchair.

A next-door neighbor takes care of a single mom’s small children while she attends night school.

Neighbors are helping neighbors in communities everywhere.

The service that takes place in low-income communities, however, is often informal, organic, and not recognized as volunteering—even by those who do it. The term we use for neighbors stepping in to take care of others in our communities is Neighboring.

Neighboring is an asset- and empowerment-based approach to community action that engages underserved and under-resourced community members to find innovative, sustainable solutions to address local challenges. Describing neighboring as asset-based acknowledges that all members of a community can offer something to improve the community.

They can share their talents, skills, knowledge, or resources. The resident-led approach primarily focuses on a specific geographic area (i.e., ZIP code, neighborhood, or street) in which the majority of the volunteers, activities, and organization come from within the community itself.

Neighboring is a place-based way of volunteering that builds on the talents and resources of local residents to strengthen families and elevate struggling communities into flourishing, vibrant places to live. It is about the connections among residents that support positive individual and community behavior based on mutual respect, responsibility, and ownership.

Neighboring is most successful in communities that lack access to the typical resources that promote self-sufficiency, such as food, clothing, jobs, and health care.

Neighboring projects may be initiated by outside organizations, but the ultimate goal of these projects is to have neighborhood residents take ownership of the projects and to support their neighborhoods. Here, the sponsoring organization’s primary role is as a catalyst: it empowers residents to lead their own projects with their own volunteers from their own community and, in doing so, to use their own talents.

This approach places the focus and organization of the initiative on the residents–putting residents in  charge of projects because they know best what their neighborhoods need . This approach allows the agency to step back when a critical mass is achieved with neighboring and ensure sustainability of the effort.

Projects don’t have to be initiated by an outside organization, though. Neighbors can come together to make the changes they want to see in their neighborhood, whether it’s cleaner streets, safe places for children to play, or trying to make their neighborhoods safer.

 

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4 Tips for Incorporating Neighboring into Existing Programs

Monday, October 1st, 2012
Neighboring is an asset- and empowerment-based approach that engages underserved and underresourced community members to find innovative, sustainable solutions to address local challenges. Asset-based refers to the acknowledgment that all members of a community can offer something to improve the community: talents, skills, knowledge, or resources. The resident-led approach primarily focuses on a specific geographic area (i.e., ZIP code, neighborhood, or street) in which the majority of the volunteers, activities, and organization come from within a community.
You can implement Neighboring as new, locally identified programming. But you can also incorporate the principles into existing programs and program models.
Take a look at your current practices for community engagement and define the communities your current initiatives
and programs’ impact. The definition may be geographic—a neighborhood—or it may focus on a stakeholder group, such as a school or nonprofit partner organization.
The Neighboring principles of asset identification and community engagement and empowerment can be incorporated into many aspects of your organization. Think about
  • Who is on your Board or advisory group? Do residents of the under-resourced community your organization impacts have an opportunity for input about your priorities and goals?
  • Do you know the local community leaders for the community you’re working in? Do they know you?
  • As you create a new project or continue an existing one, do you consult community residents for project focus, activities, and overall plan?
Service projects. Do representatives of the partner organization’s client base provide input into the program model? Do they sign on to volunteer?
  • Example: Adult ESL tutoring program. Residents who will participate offer their priorities for learning and provide input about their learning styles, the best location for tutoring, and preferred times. Local community leaders who learned English as a second language participate as volunteer and project leaders along with external volunteers.
Days of Service. Have residents of the community to be served participated on planning teams, provided input into the projects, and signed on to volunteer on the day of service?
  • Example: MLK Day. Community residents from a priority neighborhood are supported in identifying one-day service project priorities, neighborhood leaders support recruitment efforts, and a project is developed to clean a local park and build benches. Volunteers come from the local community as well as the city at large.
Youth Service Learning. Are youth engaged in asset mapping exercises before developing their service projects? Are parents and other local community members engaged in the project?
  • Example: Students from a fifth grade class conduct an asset-mapping exercise for their school community, identifying the skills of teachers, parents, and students. They decide to develop a lunchtime reading program, which will engage parents, teachers, and students in reading with one another, developing skills in parents and students simultaneously.
Financial Stability. Have local community members identified financial stability as a priority area? Have you partnered with local institutions (faith, schools, nonprofits, government) to develop the new programs? Have those institutions identified community leaders to engage as advisers, program developers, and volunteers?
To effectively weave Neighboring principles into existing organization practices, initiatives, and programs:
  • Invite community residents from the under-resourced communities your organization impacts to provide advice and feedback into organization goals and priorities.
  • Engage community residents in project planning. Ask them to provide feedback into current projects.
  • Get to know the community leaders for the communities you work with.
  • Define the community geographical, by client base (via a partner organization), and demographically.
  • Engage community residents to volunteer. Don’t run your program with volunteers who are all externally based.
Have you built neighboring into already existing programs? Let us know in the comments!
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Neighboring: The Essential Strategies

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

Volunteer programs and initiatives that view residents as assets and seek to engage the local community as an equal partner by empowering, mobilizing and building upon its assets, are best positioned to facilitate sustainable positive change. Whether it is a short term group volunteer project or a long term community initiative, more and more people are becoming neighbors and developing programs that have lasting impact on the communities.

Following are the seven basic strategies that individuals, organizations, and businesses can use when working with under-resourced communities to strengthen families and transform neighborhoods.

1. Understand the language and nature of volunteering in tough communities – Learning the language is an important aspect of working in tough communities.Volunteers are abundant in tough neighborhoods and have a long history of helping, but residents do not usually refer to themselves as “volunteers.” Often called “helping out,” “giving back,” or “neighboring,” the volunteering that takes place is not usually recognized or rewarded and happens more informally through neighborhood associations, churches, and on an individual basis.

2. Overcome barriers to volunteering – Barriers to volunteering include lack of time, financial resources, child care, transportation, as well as low self-esteem and confidence, negative perceptions of volunteering or outside organizations, as well as cultural and language barriers.These must be addressed in order to engage local residents.

3. Empower the communities to help themselves – Residents must own the issues and solutions and must witness the benefit of their involvement in solving their communities’ social problems. Outsiders cannot be “parachuted” into the community to rescue the residents. Residents must be part of the planning and decision-making process.

4. Cultivate community members’ skills and talents – The gifts and talents of the local residents need to be identified and translated into important assets needed to accomplish a project’s goals. Many residents believe they have no talents or skills to bring to the table, but only by building on existing assets within the community can real change be affected.

5. Strengthen existing community leadership – Organizations should identify existing leaders and help develop new community leaders. Local leaders help build community trust and ensure that the local perspectives and experiences are considered and understood.

6. Acknowledge that volunteering is an exchange – All volunteers need to be rewarded for their contributions in ways that make sense and have meaning to them. In tough communities an appropriate exchange could include meals, services such as tutoring, child care subsidies, and job opportunities.

7. Ensure community readiness – Building relationships and involvement takes time. It is a process that needs patience and flexibility. Communities may need help resolving conflicts or problems that are preventing residents’ involvement.

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Posted in Mobilize, Volunteerism | No Comments »

More Tips for Overcoming Challenges in Neighboring Programs

Friday, August 5th, 2011

In yesterday’s post, we shared some tips for overcoming some of the challenges you might face when you’re starting a neighboring program. Today, we wanted to share some more.

Getting residents involved in the planning proccess

  • Engage residents in the planning, decision making, and evaluation.
  • Help participants understand the assets and experience they bring to the planning process.
  • Provide food and child care.

Building community engagement

  • Incorporate social gatherings to build rapport and trust among residents. Make it fun!
  • Help residents understand the power of both individual and collective efforts.
  • Help residents see benefits of their involvement for themselves and their community.
  • Offer incentives to encourage resident involvement.
  • Mobilize residents around issues that interest them and impact them directly.
  • Find ways for youth to get involved in the community to encourage parents and families to become engaged.
  • Help communities resolve conflict that may prevent resident involvement.

Working with outside groups that might have different goals

  • Allow residents to identify and assess their own community challenges, prioritize them, and develop solutions.
  • Listen to the issues and concerns from the community.
  • Enter the community without a predetermined agenda.
  • Create a partnership that has a shared vision with the community.
  • Address and help resolve conflict among groups and members.

Keeping partner organizations engaged

  • Make a commitment to work with the community on a continuous basis even in the absence of funding.
  • Build sustaining relationships with residents.
  • Assign a project manager who has the passion and desire to work with low-income communities. Picking the right person is critical.
  • Make working with low-income communities a priority in your organization.
  • Find ways to sustain project efforts beyond the initial partnership and without funding.

Encouraging community support

  • Encourage existing leaders to train and mentor other residents to become leaders.
  • Offer and encourage residents to take leadership development training and/or volunteer management training.
  • Encourage residents to lead community projects.
  • Help create volunteer opportunities in the community.
  • Cultivate volunteer leaders as future personnel.

Neighboring programs are a great way for engaging community residents in making positive changes to their neighborhoods. If you have a success story with a neighboring program, let us know in the comments!

 

 

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Tips for Overcoming Challenges in Neighboring Programs

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Neighboring Challenges and Barriers

Neighboring by its nature tries to effect systemic change to challenges that have, over generations, become engrained in every aspect of your target community. This is inherently difficult to do. All agencies that engage in Neighboring have significant hurdles to overcome, even after several years of successful programming.

The key to sustaining Neighboring through these challenges is to leverage your connections, nurture residents’ sense of empowerment, remind them of the strides you have made, and support them through the process. Below is a list of common hurdles and strategies to overcome them.

Be aware of resident time and schedules.

  • Be flexible with project timelines. It’s okay if a small project takes more than one day to complete.
  • Organize neighborhood activities and schedule meetings during times that are convenient for most residents.
  • Host partnership meetings in a location central to residents—a nearby community center, church, local volunteer center, resident’s home, or school.
  • Provide food and child care. It will make it easier for residents with children to attend.

Help to build residents’ pride in their neighborhoods

  • Recognize resident volunteers for their hard work and participation; make recognition meaningful.
  • Help residents identify their individual unique skills and talents through assessment tools such as Alliance for Children and Families 1999 Individual Capacities Inventory and Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets.
  • Show the relationship between residents’ skills and project outcomes.
  • Encourage residents to plan and lead projects.
  • Provide community resiliency or similar training to increase residents’ self-worth and confidence.

Understand differences in community language and/or culture

  • Learn and understand the community’s history, culture, and values.
  • If residents speak a different language, identify someone to work with the community who is bilingual and knowledgeable about the community’s culture.
  • Learn and understand the community’s vocabulary or vernacular, especially in terms of how they reference service and volunteering.
  • Identify cultural tension and use creative ways to resolve conflict.

Know potential neighborhood safety issues

  • Host meetings in a place where residents feel safe.
  • Help residents develop a plan that includes local law officials.

Avoiding failed promises and unmet community needs

  • Meet with leaders and residents to understand expectations for the partnership.
  • Develop realistic expectations and a realistic timeline to implement new projects and initiatives.
  • Be clear about your organization’s role in the partnership.
  • Be honest about what your organization can and cannot do.
  • Allow residents to express their needs and desires.
  • Do what you say you will do; be there when you say you will.

Do you have tips for helping to make sure neighboring projects are successful? Let us know in the comments!

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Posted in Neighboring, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

Seven Essential Principles of Neighboring

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Yesterday’s post introduced the idea of neighboring. It’s a place-based approach to community problem solving that focuses on individuals’ talents as a resource to improve their neighborhoods.

We’ve found seven ways that individuals, organizations, and businesses can use when working with communities to engage and empower local volunteers and to build effective partnerships with their community. Whether you’re planning a short-term volunteer project or a long-term community initiative, these tips can help bring about real change!

1. Try to understand the language and nature of volunteering

  • Understand the history and culture of the community.
  • Include youth, immigrant communities, seniors, faith communities, and refugees.

2. Overcome barriers to volunteering.

  • Understand the community obstacles. What has traditionally kept people from volunteering?
  • Understand the organizational barriers. Have organizations tried to work in the community previously? What made their actions successful?

3. Empower the community.

  • Create space for residents to own their issues and develop solutions.
  • Support residents to witness the benefits of their involvement.
  • Engage residents in the decision-making process.
  • Mobilize residents around issues that impact them directly.
  • Host community meetings and provide examples of success.

 

4. Cultivate community members’ skills and talents.

  • Acknowledge and build on existing community assets.
  • Help members identify their own skills and talents.
  • Allow residents to have a real role in the partnership.
  • Encourage residents to plan and lead projects.
  • Show the relationship between residents’ skills and project outcomes.

 

5. Strengthen existing community leadership.

  • Cultivate leadership and the internal capacity of community members to lead and engage in community activities.
  • Help develop leadership and recognize different leadership styles.
  • Identify volunteer leadership development training.
  • Encourage leaders to have a leadership role in the partnership.

 

6. Acknowledge that volunteering is an exchange.

  • Offer volunteers something in exchange for the time, talents, and efforts they contribute to bettering their communities. A simple, honest, thank you note is enough to recognize each person’s contribution, but you can always do more.
  • Help people see the benefits of the work that has been done, and the work that they can do.
  • Understand that it’s okay to receive something in exchange for volunteering.
  • Develop mechanisms by which residents receive tangible outcomes such as tutoring, child care subsidies, and job opportunities.

7. Ensure community readiness.

Participate in building the internal capacity of communities to partner with outside organizations and engage residents in community activities.

  • Be patient; community building and resident involvement takes time.
  • Remember that relationship building is a process.
  • Be flexible; survival issues demand time and attention.
  • Help communities resolve conflict that may be preventing involvement.
  • Set your community up for success but accept if it is not ready.

Have you used neighboring practices in your community? Let u know what worked for you in the comments!

 

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Posted in Neighboring, Volunteerism | 2 Comments »

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? A Place-Based Approach to Volunteering

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Neighbors help neighbors.

Every day, they use their time and their gifts to strengthen families and communities.

Many, especially those living in under-resourced communities, work hard to deal with the challenges of communities where unemployment, violence, and drugs are taking their toll. In the face of these obstacles, community residents look to each other for the connections to vital resources that will improve their odds of succeeding.

The good news is that volunteering is already present in under-resourced communities; it is crucial to the lives of everyone in them.

A neighbor guides children across a busy intersection on the way to school.

A young friend makes meals for an elderly woman confined to a wheelchair.

A next-door neighbor takes care of a single mom’s small children while she attends night school.

Neighbors are helping neighbors in communities everywhere.

The service that takes place in low-income communities, however, is often informal, organic, and not recognized as volunteering—even by those who do it. The term we use for neighbors stepping in to take care of others in our communities is Neighboring.

Neighboring is an asset- and empowerment-based approach to community action that engages underserved and under-resourced community members to find innovative, sustainable solutions to address local challenges. Describing neighboring as asset-based acknowledges that all members of a community can offer something to improve the community.

They can share their talents, skills, knowledge, or resources. The resident-led approach primarily focuses on a specific geographic area (i.e., ZIP code, neighborhood, or street) in which the majority of the volunteers, activities, and organization come from within the community itself.

Neighboring is a place-based way of volunteering that builds on the talents and resources of local residents to strengthen families and elevate struggling communities into flourishing, vibrant places to live. It is about the connections among residents that support positive individual and community behavior based on mutual respect, responsibility, and ownership.

Neighboring is most successful in communities that lack access to the typical resources that promote self-sufficiency, such as food, clothing, jobs, and health care.

Neighboring projects may be initiated by outside organizations, but the ultimate goal of these projects is to have neighborhood residents take ownership of the projects and to support their neighborhoods. Here, the sponsoring organization’s primary role is as a catalyst: it empowers residents to lead their own projects with their own volunteers from their own community and, in doing so, to use their own talents.

This approach places the focus and organization of the initiative on the residents–putting residents in  charge of projects because they know best what their neighborhoods need . This approach allows the agency to step back when a critical mass is achieved with neighboring and ensure sustainability of the effort.

Projects don’t have to be initiated by an outside organization, though. Neighbors can come together to make the changes they want to see in their neighborhood, whether it’s cleaner streets, safe places for children to play, or trying to make their neighborhoods safer.

Over the next few days, we’re going to look at how neighboring can help to bring in your community and ways to integrate it into existing volunteer programs. Our goal is to inspire, equip, and mobilize more nonprofit organizations to see their most challenged communities as places of promise—places where resident skills, talents, and desires are seen as wealth on which to capitalize in order to create sustained, lasting change.

 

Tags: asset-based volunteering, , , neighbors, place-based volunteering
Posted in Neighboring, Volunteering | 5 Comments »