Search form

Ask an Advisor Answers

    Question:
    There is a new website call "Nextdoor," one of our neighbors has started the site. I see this as a wonderful opportunity for community member to become actively involved, aware of what their local elected official are doing, crime in the area and so much more. However, with all of this potential, there is a certain City Council member, discouraging political, religion and sexual content. I can agree with restricting religious and sexual content, but politics? Ours is a very poor city, with very little commerce or growth. I believe some of this has to do with poor city management. Do you have any ideas about how I might gently persuade them to understand that we as a collective group would greatly benefit by being more informed about our cities politics? Our newspaper is extremely bias.
    You are obviously far more educated than I am, if you have a persuasive research doc that would explain this, that might help too.

    Thanks for being there, and Thanks for the website.

    Shelley
    Answer:

    Good afternoon, Shelley, and thanks for contacting CTB.
    While we do not have a research document that specifically addresses your issue, we do have information about advocacy and political process that may help you build a constituency in support of your goal.
    Please click on our Learn a Skill graphic at the top of our home page, and then on Table of contents.  Take a look at chapters 30, 33, and 24; plus related Toolkit 10.These will give you information about the process of advocacy, the importance of building a supportive constituency, and of developing a relationship with political leaders.  All of that involves a process that can take time and can be very frustrating.  Build a relationship with several political leaders and explain to all why you see value in the website and how it can help build citizen participation in community affairs..
    One thing that is not clear to me is whether the one political leader to whom you refer has any real authority over your neighbor's website.  Clearly she/he can raise objections, but can it be shut down because of objections?  Part of that depends upon the courage of you and your neighbor in keeping the website going despite political objections, and part of it depends upon how many citizens try out the website and continue to return to it.  That leads me to suggest you also take a look at chapter 34: Media Advocacy, for guidance about how you might frame your case to the public, and invite citizens to participate with you in making it even better and more relevant to your community.
    Issues such as this can be big challenges in small towns (AND in large cities), but well worth the effort.  Courage!
    Question Date: Tue, 09/23/2014