Chapter 18. Deciding Where to Start | Community Tool Box

Adapted from "Conducting intervention research: The design and development process" by Stephen B. Fawcett et al.

You've put together a group of motivated, savvy people, who really want to make a difference in the community. Maybe you want to increase adults' physical activity and reduce risks for heart attacks; perhaps you want children to read more and do better in school. Whatever you want to do, the end is clear enough, but the means--ah, the means are giving you nightmares. How do you reach that goal your group has set for itself? What are the best things to do to achieve it?

Generally speaking, what you're thinking about is intervening in people's environments, making it easier and more rewarding for people to change their behaviors. In the case of encouraging people's physical activity, you might provide information about opportunities, increase access to opportunities, and enhance peer support. Different ways to do this are called, sensibly enough, interventions. Comprehensive interventions combine the various components needed to make a difference.

What is an intervention?

An intervention is a deliberate action or set of actions designed to create positive change. Interventions can take many forms, including programs, policies, practices, environmental changes, communication campaigns, or community initiatives.

What makes something an intervention is not its form, but its purpose: to influence behaviors, conditions, or systems in ways that improve outcomes for individuals, organizations, or communities. Effective interventions often go beyond encouraging people to change their behavior. They also address environmental, social, and structural factors that shape what people are able to do.

For example, a community may seek to prevent sexual violence. While public awareness messages can help increase understanding of the issue, research shows that lasting change often requires addressing the conditions that contribute to violence and support safety, respect, and accountability.

Interventions to prevent sexual violence might include:

• Improving street lighting, transportation options, and other environmental features that increase community safety.
• Providing safe ride programs or other transportation services so people can travel safely, especially at night.
• Offering education and skill-building programs that promote healthy relationships, consent, bystander intervention, and violence prevention.
• Supporting policies and organizational practices that strengthen accountability, improve reporting and response systems, and increase access to services for survivors.
• Engaging community members, schools, workplaces, and organizations in creating cultures that promote respect, equity, and safety. 

 

In many cases, the most effective interventions combine multiple approaches, addressing both individual behaviors and the broader systems and environments that influence them. By creating supportive conditions for change, interventions can help communities achieve meaningful and lasting improvements in health, well-being, and quality of life.

Why should you develop interventions?

There are many strong advantages to using interventions as a means to achieve your goals. Some are very apparent; some possibly less so. Some of the more important of these advantages are:

• By designing and implementing interventions in a clear, systematic manner, you can improve the health and well-being of your community and its residents.
• Interventions promote understanding of the condition you are working on and its causes and solutions. Simply put, when you do something well, people notice, and the word slowly spreads. In fact, such an intervention can produce a domino effect, sparking others to understand the issue you are working on and to work on it themselves.

For example, a grade school principal in the Midwest was struck by the amount of unsupervised free time students had between three and six o'clock, when their parents got home from work. From visiting her own mother in a nursing home, she knew, too, of the loneliness felt by many residents of such homes. So she decided to try to lessen both problems by starting a "Caring Hearts" program. Students went to nursing homes to see older adults after school once or twice a week to visit, play games, and exchange stories.

Well, a reporter heard about the program, and did a feature article on it on the cover of the "Community Life" section of the local newspaper. The response was tremendous. Parents from all across town wanted their children involved, and similar programs were developed in several schools throughout the town.

• To do what you are already doing better. Finally, learning to design an intervention properly is important because you are probably doing it already. Most of us working to improve the health and well-being of members of our community design (or at least run) programs, or try to change policies such as local laws or school board regulations, or try to change the things some people regularly practice. By better understanding the theories behind choosing, designing, and developing an intervention, you will improve on the work you are currently doing.

When should you develop an intervention?

It makes sense to develop or redesign an intervention when:

• There is a community issue or problem that local people and organizations perceive as an unfilled need
• Your organization has the resources, ability, and desire to fill that need, and
• You have decided that your group is the appropriate one to accomplish it

The last of these three points deserves some explanation. There will always be things that your organization could do, that quite probably should be left to other organizations or individuals. For example, a volunteer crisis counseling center might find they have the ability to serve as a shelter for people needing a place to stay for a few nights. However, doing so would strain their resources and take staff and volunteers away from the primary mission of the agency.

In cases like this, where could does not equal should, your organization might want to think twice about developing a new intervention that will take away from the mission.

How do you develop an intervention?

So, people are mobilized, the coffee's hot, and you're ready to roll. Your group is ready to take on the issue--you want to design an intervention that will really improve conditions in the area. How do you start?

Decide what needs to happen

This could be a problem that needs to be solved, such as, "too many students are dropping out of school." However, it might be also a good thing, and you want to find a way to make more of it happen. For example, you might want to find a way to convince more adults to volunteer with school-aged children. At this point, you will probably want to define the problem broadly, as you will be learning more about it in the next few steps. Keep in mind these questions as you think about this:

• What behavior needs to change?
• Whose behavior needs to change?
• If people are going to change their behavior, what changes in the environment need to occur to make it happen? For example, if you want people to recycle, you'll have much better results if there is easy access to recycling bins.
• What specific changes should happen as a result of the intervention?

You don't need to have answers to all of these questions at this point. In fact, it's probably better to keep an open mind until you gather more information, including by talking with people who are affected (we'll get to that in the next few steps ). But thinking about these questions will help orient you and get you geared in the right direction.

Use a measurement system to gather information about the level of the problem

You will need to gather information about the level of the problem before you do anything to see if it is as serious as it seems, and to establish a standard for later improvement (or worsening).

Measurement instruments include:

• Direct observations of behavior. For example, you can watch whether merchants sell alcohol to people under the age of 21.
• Behavioral surveys. For example, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asks questions about drug use, sexual activity without protection against pregnancy or STIs, and violence.
• Interviews with key people. For example, you might ask about changes in programs, policies, and practices that the group helped bring about.
• Review of archival or existing records. For example, we might look at records of the rate of adolescent pregnancy, unemployment, or children living in poverty.

The group might review the level of the problem over time to detect trends--is the problem getting better or worse? It also might gather comparison information-- how are we doing compared to other, similar communities?

Decide who the intervention should help

In a childhood immunization program, your interventions would be aimed at helping children. Likewise, in a program helping people to live independently, the intervention would try to help older adults or people with disabilities. Your intervention might not be focused on a specific population, but be for the entire community. For example, perhaps you are trying to increase the amount of policing to make local parks safer. This change of law enforcement policy would affect people throughout the community.

Usually, interventions will target the people who will directly benefit from the intervention, but this isn't always the case. For example, a program to try to increase the number of parents and guardians who bring in their children for immunizations on time would benefit the children most directly. However, interventions wouldn't target them, since children aren't the ones making the decision. Instead, the primary "targets of change" for your interventions might be parents and health care professionals.

Before we go on, some brief definitions may be helpful. Targets of change are those people whose behavior you are trying to change. As we saw above, these people may be--but are not always--the same people who will benefit directly from the intervention. They often include others, such as public officials, who have the power to make needed changes in the environment. Agents of change are those people who can help make change occur. Examples might be local residents, community leaders, and policy makers. The "movers and the shakers," they are the ones who can make things happen--and who you definitely want to contribute to the solution.

Involve potential clients or end users of the intervention

Once you have decided broadly what should happen and who it should happen with, you need to make sure you have involved the people affected. Even if you think you know what they want--ask anyway. For your intervention to be successful, you can't have too much feedback. Some of these folks will likely have a perspective on the issue you hadn't even thought of.

Also, by asking for their help, the program becomes theirs. For example, by giving teachers and parents input in designing a "school success" intervention, they take "ownership" for the program. They become proud of it--which means they won't only use it, they?ll also support it and tell their friends, and word will spread.

Again, for ideas on how to find and choose these people, the section mentioned above on targets and agents of change may be helpful.

Identify the issues or problems you will attempt to solve together

There are a lot of ways in which you can talk with people affected about the information that interests you. Some of the more common methods include:

• Informal personal contact - just talking with people, and seeing what they have to say
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Community forums
• Concerns surveys

When you are talking to people, try and get at the real issue--the one that is the underlying reason for what's going on. It's often necessary to focus not on the problem itself, but on affecting the cause of the problem.

For example, if you want to reduce the number of people in your town who are homeless, you need to find out why so many people in your town lack decent shelter: Do they lack the proper skills to get jobs? Is there a large population of people with mental health conditions that isn't receiving the help it should? Your eventual intervention may address deeper causes, seeming to have little to do with reducing homelessness directly, although that remains the goal.

Analyze these problems or the issue to be addressed in the intervention

Using the information you gathered in step five, you need to decide on answers to some important questions. These will depend on your situation, but many of the following questions might be appropriate for your purpose:

• What factors put people experiencing increased risk for (or protect them against) the problem or concern?
• Whose behavior (or lack of behavior) caused the problem?
• Whose behavior (or lack of behavior) maintains the problem?
• For whom is the situation a problem?
• What are the negative consequences for those directly affected?
• What are the negative consequences for the community?
• Who, if anyone, benefits from things being the way they are now?
• How do they benefit?
• Who should share the responsibility for solving the problem?
• What behaviors need to change to consider the problem "solved"?
• What conditions need to change to address the issue or problem?
• How much change is necessary?
• At what level(s) should the problem be addressed? Is it something that should be addressed by individuals; by families working together; by local organizations or neighborhoods; or at the level of the city, town, or broader environment?
• Will you be able to make changes at the level(s) identified? This question includes technical capability, ensuring you have enough money to do it, and that it is going to be politically possible.

Set goals and objectives

When you have gotten this far, you are ready to set the broad goals and objectives of what the intervention will do. Remember, at this point you still have NOT decided what that intervention will be. This may seem a little backwards to your normal thinking--but we're starting from the finish line, and asking you to move backwards. Give it a try--we think it will work for you.

Specifically, you will want to answer the following questions as concretely as you can:

• What should the intervention accomplish? For example, your goal might be for most of the people experiencing homelessness who are able to hold jobs do so by the end of the intervention.
• What will success look like? If your intervention is successful, how will you know it? How will you explain to other people that the intervention has worked? What are the "benchmarks" or indicators that show you are moving in the right direction?
• Finally, what are the specific objectives you want to achieve? When you are writing down your objectives, be as specific as possible. State how much change you want to see happen in what behaviors and activities. By whom? By when?
  • For example, you might say, "By 2010 (when), 80% of those currently experiencing homelessness (who) will be successfully employed at least part time (change sought)."

Learn what others have done

Now, armed with all of the information you have found so far, you are ready to start concentrating on the specific intervention itself. The easiest way to start this is by finding out what other people in your situation have done. Don't reinvent the wheel! There might be some "best practices"-- exceptional programs or policies--out there that are close to what you want to do. It's worth taking the time to try to find them.

Where do you look for promising approaches? There are a lot of possibilities, and how exhaustive your search will be will depend on the time and resources you have (not to mention how long it takes you to find something you like!) But some of the more common resources you might start with include:

• See what local examples are available. What has worked in your community? How about in nearby places? Can you figure out why it worked? If possible, talk to the people responsible for those approaches, and try to understand why and how they did what they did.
• Look for examples of what has been done in articles and studies in related fields. Sources might be professional journals, such as the American Journal of Public Health, or even occasionally, general news magazines. Also, look at interventions that have been done for related problems--perhaps they can be adapted for use by your group. Information and awareness events, for example, tend to be general in nature--you can do a similar event and change what it's for. A 5-K race might be planned, for example, to raise awareness of and money for breast cancer, to protest environmental destruction, and so on.
• National conferences. If you can, attending national meetings or conferences on the problem or issue you are trying to solve can give you excellent insight on some of the "best practices" that are out there.

Brainstorm ideas of your own

Take a sheet of paper and write down all of the possibilities you can think of. If you are deciding as a group, this could be done on poster paper attached to a wall, so everyone can see the possibilities-- this often works to help people come up with other ideas. Be creative!

Try to decide what interventions or parts of interventions have worked, and what might be applicable to your situation

What can your organization afford to do? And by afford, we mean financially, politically, time, and resource wise. For example, how much time can you put into this? Will the group lose stature in the community, or support from certain people, by doing a particular intervention?

When you are considering interventions done by others, look specifically for ones that are:

• Appropriate - Do they fit the group's purpose?
• Effective - Did they make a difference on behavior and outcome?
• Replicable - Are the details and results of what happened in the original intervention explained well enough to repeat what was done? Unfortunately, this isn't always the case--many people, when you talk to them, will say, "Oh! We just did it! "
• Simple - Is it clear enough for people in your group to do?
• Practical - Do we have the time and money to do this?
• Compatible with your situation - Does it fit local needs, resources, and values

Identify barriers and resistance you might come up against

What barriers and resistance might we face? How can they be overcome? Be prepared for whatever may come your way.

For example, a youth group to prevent substance use wanted to outlaw smoking on the high school campus by everyone, including the teachers and other staff members. However, they knew they would come up against resistance among teachers and staff members who smoked. How might they overcome that opposition?

Identify core components and elements of the intervention

Here is where we get to the nuts and bolts of designing an intervention.

First, decide the core components that will be used in the intervention. Much like broad strategies, these are the general things you will do as part of the intervention. They are the "big ideas" that can then be further broken down.

There are four classes of components to consider when designing your intervention:

1. Providing information and skills training
2. Enhancing support and resources
3. Modifying access and barriers
4. Monitoring and giving feedback

A comprehensive intervention will choose components for each of these four categories. For example, a youth mentoring program might choose the following components:

• For providing information and skills training, a component might be recruitment of youth and mentors
• For enhancing support and reinforcement, a component might be arranging celebrations among program participants
• For modifying access and barriers, a component might be making it easier to volunteer
• For monitoring and giving feedback, a component might be tracking the number of young people and volunteers involved

Next, decide the specific elements that compose each of the components. These elements are the distinct activities that will be done to implement the components.

For example, a comprehensive effort to prevent youth smoking might include public awareness and skills training, restricting tobacco advertising, and modifying access to tobacco products. For the component of trying to modify access, an element of this strategy might be to do 'stings' at convenience stores to see which merchants are selling tobacco illegally to adolescents. Another element might be to give stiffer penalties to adolescents who try to buy cigarettes, and to those merchants who sell.

Develop an action plan to carry out the intervention

When you are developing your action plan, you will want it to answer the following questions:

• What components and elements will be implemented?
• Who should implement what by when?
• What resources and support are needed? What are available?
• What potential barriers or resistance are expected? How will they be minimized?
• What individuals or organizations need to be informed? What do you need to tell them?

Pilot-test your intervention

None of us likes to fall flat on our face, but frankly, it's a lot easier when there aren't very many people there to watch us, and when there isn't a lot on the line. By testing your intervention on a small scale, you have the chance to work out the bugs and get back on your feet before the crowd comes in. When doing your pilot test, you need to do the following things:

• Decide how the intervention will be tested on a small scale
• Evaluate your results
• Pay particular attention to unintended consequences or side effects that you find when you evaluate your work
• Use feedback from those who tried the intervention to simplify and refine your plan

Implement your intervention

If you have followed all of the steps above, implementing your action plan will be easier. Go to it!

Constantly monitor and evaluate your work

When the wheels are turning and things seem to be under control, congratulations! You have successfully implemented your intervention! But of course, the work never ends. It's important to see if the intervention is working, and to "tweak" it and make changes as necessary.

In Summary

Designing an intervention, and doing it well, isn't necessarily an easy task. There are a lot of steps involved, and a lot of work to be done, if you are going to do it well. But by systematically going through the process, you are able to catch mistakes before they happen; you can stand on the shoulders of those who have done this work before you and learn from their successes and failures.

Example 1: "Caring Pairs" Components and Elements Background Table

Problem/Issue to be Addressed	Pairing local children with adults in mutually helpful volunteer opportunities
Risk/Protective Factors	Opportunities to serve Stronger adult-youth relationships Stronger peer relationships Supervised alternative activities Stronger community support Social skills Improved academic performance Increased life options
Targets of Change	Corporations, faith institutions, schools, service organizations, adults, program staff, students, teachers, Federal and State agencies
Agents of Change	Advisory Board, School District Coordinators, program staff, current volunteers, school districts, YMCA, School District Coordinators, Students in kindergarten through twelfth grade
Components	Recruitment, matching, activities
Elements	Marketing, selection, background checks, activity assignment, orientation, training One-to-One Mentor Tutor Phone pal Career exploration Group After-school Facilitator Lunch reading group Church-school program Saturday activities Pregnant teen Support Group Basketball clinic Career Discovery Day
Mode/Context of Delivery	Media, businesses, faith institutions, nonprofit organizations, service organizations, government, schools, School District Coordinators, field trip locations

 Example 2: "Caring Pairs" Table of Components and Elements

	Providing Information and Enhancing Skills	Enhancing Support and resources	Modifying opportunities and barriers	Monitoring and Feedback
Components	- Recruitment - Matching	- Celebrations - Resource Sharing - Recognition	- Provide opportunities to serve - Making it easier to volunteer	- Tracking the number of youth and volunteers
Elements	- Promote awareness - Selection of volunteers - Background checks - Activity assignment - Orientation - Training	- Monthly celebrations - Agency newsletter - Articles on volunteers in town newspaper	- Change policies to allow flex time at work Opportunities: - Mentor - Tutor - Phone Pal - Career Exploration - After-school Facilitator - Lunch Reading Group - Church-School Program - Saturday activities - Pregnant teen Support Group - Basketball clinic - Career Discovery Day	- How many hours are spent by volunteers and youth? - How many volunteers and youth are involved?

 Example 3: Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program Components and Elements Background Table

Problem/Issue to be Addressed	Adolescent pregnancy is a serious problem in our community
Risk/Protective Factors	Knowledge of contraceptives, risks Access to contraceptives Skills Values and beliefs Problems at home (conflict, inconsistent rules from parents) Economic deprivation
Targets of Change	Adolescents, peers, parents and caregivers, teachers, service providers, business people, and elected and appointed officials
Agents of Change	Peers, parents and caregivers, teachers, service providers, religious leaders, business people, elected and appointed officials
Components	Sexuality education, develop community alliances, improve access to contraceptives, monitor rates of adolescent pregnancy, improve peer support, increase alternative activities
Elements	Offer graduate-level training for teachers in sexuality education Offer skills training for teens for the choice of avoiding unprotected sexual activity Use bulletin boards and the school newspaper to keep teens up-to-date on special events Begin a "brown bag" program for teens to buy contraceptives without others knowing what they are doing Start a support group to help teen mothers stay in school
Mode/Context of Delivery	Schools, media, businesses, faith institutions, service organizations

 Example 4: Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program Table of Components and Elements

	Providing Information and skills training	Enhancing support and resources	Modifying opportunities and barriers	Monitoring and Feedback
Components	- Sexuality education	- Provide peer support - Provide support from influential others - Develop community alliances	- Improve access to contraceptives	- Monitor rates of adolescent pregnancy
Elements	- Offer graduate-level training for teachers in sexuality education - Offer skills training to teens on avoiding unprotected sexual activity - Use bulletin boards and the school newspaper to keep teens up-to-date on special events	- Start a support group to help teen mothers stay in school - Establish a mentoring program for at-risk youth to gain access to potential employers and job opportunities	- Begin a "brown bag" program for teens to buy contraceptives without others knowing what they are doing - Contraception and information about its use will be made available at places where teens congregate	- How many teens report abstaining from intercourse? - How many teens report the use of contraceptives if they do engage in sexual activity? - How many teens become pregnant? - Report the estimated pregnancy rate to the community on an annual basis

 Example 5: Neighborhood Revitalization Project Components and Elements Background Table

Problem/Issue to be Addressed	We want to improve neighborhood life through better jobs, housing, and education.
Risk/Protective Factors	Economic deprivation Community disorganization Mobility Availability of illegal substances / weapons Skills training
Targets of Change	Business people, residents (including youth), elected and appointed officials, funders, higher education institutions
Agents of Change	Business people, residents (including youth), elected and appointed officials, funders, higher education institutions
Components	Job training, job availability, land reorganization, monitoring of joblessness, education and training
Elements	Develop adult literacy programs Expand affordable childcare Expand computer access for residents through local community organization Hold an annual job fair Provide loans to support small business development Clear land for new business Increase incentives to encourage rehabilitation of existing housing Increase clean up of yards, sidewalks, and vacant lots Build more low- and middle-income housing in the neighborhood
Mode/Context of Delivery	Businesses, housing authority, schools, media, faith institutions, service organizations

Example 6: Neighborhood Revitalization Project Table of Components and Elements

	Providing information and skils training	Enhancing support and resources	Modifying opportunities and barriers	Monitoring and Feedback
Components	- Increase job training - Provide information on job training - Increase general education	- Provide support for new businesses - Provide financial support for home rehabilitation	- Reduce barriers to going to work - Reorganize land use	- Monitoring joblessness, education
Elements	- Develop adult literacy programs - Hold an annual job fair - Develop programs to help residents obtain their GED - Increase the number of computers in schools - Establish a summer internship program for high school students	- Provide low interest loans to encourage rehabilitation of existing housing - Build more low- and middle-income h ousing in the neighborhood - Institute tax breaks for employers who relocate in the neighborhood	- Expand affordable childcare - Expand computer access for residents through local community organizations - Provide loans to support small business development - Clear land for new business - Improve the public transportation system	- What is the rate of unemployment for the neighborhood? - What percentage of high school freshmen graduate high school or obtain a GED? - What percentage of high school students receive further education?

 

Tool 1: Problem analysis sheet

The following page gives you room to analyze the problem or issue you want your group to address. This information can then be used to help you set goals and objectives.

What factors put people at risk for (or protect them against) the problem or concern?
Whose behavior (or lack of behavior) caused the problem?
Whose behavior (or lack of behavior) maintains the problem?
For whom is the situation a problem?
What are the negative consequences for those directly affected?
What are the negative consequences for the community?
Who, if anyone, benefits from things being the way they are now?
How do they benefit?
Who should share the responsibility for solving the problem?
What behaviors need to change to consider the problem "solved"?
What conditions need to change to address the issue or problem?
How much change is necessary?
At what level(s) should the problem be addressed?
Will you be able to make changes at the level(s) identified?

Tool 2: Components and Elements Background Table

Use this table to look holistically at the intervention you will develop.

	Providing Information and Skills Training	Enhancing Support
Problem/Issue to be Addressed
Risk/Protective Factors
Targets of Change
Agents of Change
Components
Elements
Mode/Context of Delivery

 Tool 3: Table of Components and Elements

	Providing Information and Skills Training	Enhancing Support and Resources	Modifying Opportunities and Barriers	Monitoring and Feedback
Components
Elements

Tool 4: Determining if interventions done by others are appropriate for your purpose and situation

Use this table to help you determine if a particular intervention you know about is right for your purpose and situation.

What is the intervention?
Is it appropriate for our purpose?
Is it effective?
Is it replaceable?
Is it simple?
Is it practical?
Is it compatible with our situation?
Additional domments:

 

___You understand that an intervention can be a program, a change in policy, or a practice that becomes popular

___You understand that interventions focus on people's behaviors, and how changes in the environment can support those behaviors

___You understand the advantages of developing interventions

___You understand when you should develop or redesign interventions

Developing the intervention:

___You have decided what needs to happen

___You have used a measurement system to gather information about the level of the problem

___You have decided whom the intervention needs to help

___You have involved potential clients or end users of the intervention

___With these clients, you have identified the issues or problems you will attempt to solve together

___You have analyzed these problems or the issue to be addressed in the intervention

___You have set goals and objectives

___You have learned what others have done

___You have brainstormed your own ideas

___You have tried to decide what interventions or parts of interventions have worked, and what might be applicable to your situation

___You have identified barriers and resistance you might come up against

___You have identified core components and elements of the intervention

___You have developed an action plan to carry out the intervention

___You have pilot-tested your intervention

___You have implemented your intervention

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is a participatory approach to planning?

• What are the advantages of a participatory planning approach?

• What are the disadvantages of a participatory planning approach?

• What are the levels of participatory planning?

• When is participatory planning appropriate?

• When is participatory planning not appropriate?

• Who should be involved in a participatory planning process?

• What do you have to do to get a participatory planning process up and running?

 

 

Everyone who's ever worked in health or human services knows at least one horror story about an intervention that either went wrong or never worked for a minute. Often, when the story is told, it becomes clear that the well-intentioned professionals in charge had totally misunderstood or ignored some fundamental fact about the community or the priority population. Since they assumed they knew what was needed, they planned the whole thing themselves...and failed miserably.

For every horror story, however, there's a story about an intervention where everything went right. In many of these cases, you'll find that the priority population - and often the larger community as well - was included in the planning of the intervention from the beginning.

When an organization decides to take on a community intervention - whether a full -fledged service program or a one-time campaign to accomplish one specific goal - it can often increase its chance of success by using a participatory planning process. In this section, we'll explore what a participatory planning process is, why it's valuable, its potential advantages and disadvantages, and how to use it to plan an effective intervention - one where everything goes right.

What is a participatory approach to planning?

In its simplest terms, a participatory approach is one in which everyone who has a stake in the intervention has a voice, either in person or by representation. Staff of the organization that will run it, members of the priority population, community officials, interested community members, and people from involved agencies, schools, and other institutions all should be invited to the table. Everyone's participation should be welcomed and respected, and the process shouldn't be dominated by any individual or group, or by a single point of view.

That's the ideal. The reality may often be quite different. Some people might not want to be involved - they may feel it takes too much time, or they don't have the skills needed. Particular individuals or groups may feel left out and disrespected if they're not invited to participate. The planning process may be a rubber stamp for ideas that have already been developed. Some people's opinions may be listened to more carefully than those of others. In some of these situations, a participatory process can cause as many problems as never involving people at all.

The important thing to remember here is the word participatory. The use of that term implies not just that you'll ask for someone's opinion before you do what you were going to do anyway, but rather that each participant becomes an important contributor to the planning process.

A true participatory approach is one in which everyone's perspective is considered. That doesn't mean that people can't challenge others' assumptions, or argue about what the best strategy might be. It does mean, however, that everyone's thoughts are respected, and it isn't necessarily assumed that the professionals or the well -educated automatically know what's best. Everyone actually gets to participate in the planning process, and has some role in decision-making.

People with lower incomes and people from underrepresented groups have historically had fewer opportunities to influence some community and institutional decisions. Meaningful participation creates genuine opportunities for community members to contribute their knowledge, lived experience, ideas, and priorities.

Respectful participation also means engaging seriously with one another's perspectives. Participants should be able to ask questions, disagree, explore different ideas, and work toward shared understanding without assuming that any person's perspective should automatically be accepted or dismissed.

Participants may bring different levels of familiarity with planning processes or technical information. Providing accessible information, resources, and support can help everyone participate fully while recognizing community members' lived experience and local knowledge as valuable forms of expertise.

What are the advantages of a participatory planning approach?

• Participation carries with it feelings of ownership, and builds a strong base for the intervention in the community. If people are integral to the planning of a community intervention, then that intervention will be theirs. They have a stake in it not only as its beneficiaries or staff or sponsors, but as its originators. They'll do what they can to see their work succeed.
• It ensures that the intervention will have more credibility in all segments of the community because it was planned by a group representing all segments of the community. If people know that others with the same point of view and experience as theirs were instrumental in making the intervention happen, they'll assume that their interests were attended to.
• Bringing a broader range of people to the planning process provides access to a broader range of perspectives and ideas.
• A participatory planning approach avoids pitfalls caused by ignorance of the realities of the community or the priority population. If, for instance, Muslims are part of the planning process for an intervention in a community which includes many followers of Islam, they'll know that lunch meetings during Ramadan, the Islamic month of daytime fasting, are not likely to work. Long-time community members will know what has failed in the past, and why, and can keep the group from repeating past mistakes.
• It involves important players from the outset. If the intervention needs the support of a particular individual, or that of a particular agency or group, and they've been part of the planning from the beginning, their cooperation is assured.
• It can provide an opportunity for groups that have historically experienced exclusion to be heard, and teach the community that they have important things to say.
• It teaches skills which last far beyond the planning process, and can help to improve the community over the long term. People learn to run meetings, to analyze data, to construct strategic plans - in short, to become community resources and leaders.
• It can bring together and establish ties among community members who might normally have no contact. Such relationships - between people with lower incomes and business leaders, for instance - are not only supportive of the intervention, but may help to create long-term relationships and break down barriers in the community.
• A participatory planning process builds trust, both between your organization and the community and among the individuals involved. This trust can serve as a foundation for future community development and community action.
• A participatory planning process generally reflects the mission and goals of grassroots and community-based organizations. With its underpinnings of collaboration, inclusiveness, and empowerment, a participatory approach embodies the ideals that form the foundations of most grassroots and community-based organizations.
• It implies respect for everyone in the community, and thus sets a standard for community participation and empowerment that other organizations - and the community at large - may feel compelled to follow.
• Logically, a participatory planning approach should be effective. The fact that it includes the views and perspectives of everyone affected by the intervention should work to assure that all assets and needs are identified and addressed, and that unintended consequences are minimized.
• Finally, it does things the way they should be done. It respects everyone's intelligence, values everyone's ideas and experience, and affords everyone a measure of control. By empowering the community, and particularly the priority population, rather than just superimposing its own ideas on a social structure that already exists, your organization can give substance to its ideals. In the final analysis, some level of participatory approach is almost always the most ethical way to plan a community intervention.

What are the disadvantages of a participatory planning approach?

It's crucial to understand and anticipate these considerations, and to decide when and how a participatory planning approach can work in your situation.

• A participatory process takes longer. A diverse group always takes longer to make decisions and come to conclusions than does an individual or small group.
• Community members and people with professional or technical expertise may have different perspectives on priorities, needs, strengths, and potential solutions.
• Participants bring different forms of knowledge and experience to the planning process. Organizations can make technical information accessible while also recognizing community members' lived experience, cultural knowledge, and local expertise. Organizations may also need to deepen their understanding of community history, culture, relationships, and priorities. Shared learning can strengthen the planning process.
• One determined individual can wreck the whole process if they are not handled well. Someone who has a particular axe to grind, or who's convinced that only they know what's right for the community can make a participatory process very difficult. Handling this situation can take both tact and toughness.
• It may be difficult to assure that all the right people get to the table. Some key people may simply not want to participate. Factions in the community, a history of failed attempts at communication or at dealing with problems, ignorance of which groups or individuals are important, or just basic mistrust may complicate the task of creating a participatory planning process. Overcoming this barrier, however, can have profound positive consequences in the community over the long term.
• A participatory planning process takes patience and commitment on everyone's part. People have to maintain their commitment over time, remain civil while discussing issues about which they may have strong feelings, and be willing to compromise. A few misplaced words, or one or a small number of key people losing interest can upset the whole process.

While these disadvantages present potential or real challenges to the success of a participatory planning process, overcoming them may tremendously increase the possibility of designing and carrying out an effective community intervention.

What are the levels of participatory planning?

There are a number of ways to consider participatory planning. As demonstrated in the discussion above of advantages and disadvantages, this kind of process always presents, even at best, a trade-off between efficiency and inclusiveness. Time pressure, the needs of the community, the skills and experience of those participating, and the nature of the intervention, among other factors, all help to dictate the actual shape of the planning process.

So what are the possibilities? Just how participatory do you want to be? David Wilcox, in his excellent "Guide to Effective Participation," sets out the following as a model of the different possible levels of participation:

• Information - The least you can do is tell people what is planned.
• Consultation - You offer a number of options and listen to the feedback you get.
• Deciding together - You encourage others to provide some additional ideas and options, and join in deciding the best way forward.
• Acting together - Not only do different interests decide together what is best, but they form a partnership to carry it out.
• Supporting independent community initiatives - You help others do what they want - perhaps within a framework of grants, advice and support provided by the resource holder.

Each of these levels may be appropriate in different circumstances, or with different groups, although only at "deciding together" and above do they really begin to be fully participatory in the sense that the term is used in this section.

When is participatory planning appropriate?

Information-only may be appropriate when:

• The course of action has already been decided - by a funder, for instance
• You're simply reporting on something that's already in progress
• You're keeping people informed so that they'll have the information to be part of a participatory effort later

Consultation-only may be appropriate when:

• You want to evaluate or improve existing services
• There are limited options, and you're trying to choose among them
• There are technical reasons - again, perhaps because of a funder - why only certain people or groups can be officially involved in the planning process

But remember, if you consult with people in the community, you have to pay attention to what they tell you. If you're simply going to ignore their ideas and recommendations, you shouldn't consult at all. Being asked for an opinion and then ignored is much more insulting and infuriating than never being asked in the first place. At the very least, people deserve an explanation of why their advice isn't being followed.

Deciding together may be appropriate when:

• It's important that everyone feel ownership of the plan
• You want fresh ideas from as many sources as possible
• You can pull in people whom the intervention will directly affect
• There's a commitment to provide support through the process for those who need it
• There's enough time

In reality, as mentioned earlier, a planning process often is time-limited by proposal deadlines, the severity of the need (if adolescents are dying every day by gunfire, a violence prevention program needs to get under way quickly), the requirements of other partners or funders, etc. The trick is to balance participation and time restraints, and to try to use the highest level of participation possible under the circumstances.

Acting together may be appropriate when:

• The intervention will be more effective than if it were run by a single entity
• There is a funder's requirement for community oversight
• There is commitment to the development of a real partnership
• Everyone benefits from acting together
• One goal of the intervention is the eventual assumption of leadership or the learning of leadership skills by the priority population and/or others in the community

The word "partnership" implies a relationship of equals, where everyone has an equal voice, and where power and responsibility are equally shared. Forming such a relationship, even in circumstances where everyone truly desires it, is not a quick or easy task. It takes time, commitment both to the process and the end product (the partnership), and the willingness to air and work through disagreements and philosophical differences. If you're not willing to give yourself to the development of a real partnership, acting together may be only a future goal for your organization and its community.

Supporting local initiatives may be appropriate when:

• There is a commitment to community empowerment
• The community has the desire and at least some of the tools to start and run a successful intervention
• There is a commitment to provide training and support where needed
• Your organization can only provide support, or can only run an intervention for a short time

As you try to determine what level of participation is right for your situation, consider this: A participatory planning process has the potential to become a charade meant only to convince the community that a participatory process is going on.

An adult educator related a conversation with his father-in-law, who worked in a factory of one of the big Detroit automakers. The company had initiated Total Quality Management, and had reorganized the factory workers into teams. Each team included workers from each step in the car manufacturing process, and was meant to be responsible for the building of a whole car from start to finish. Furthermore, each team was supposed to be able to change its procedures to make them more efficient or easier, and thus to improve production through the knowledge and skill of team members.

Knowing that his father-in-law was a longtime union activist and socialist, the younger man said, "That must be great. The workers actually have some control over production." The father-in-law, however, quickly burst the bubble. "No, it's the same as it was before, except now they make us sit in meetings and tell them what we think before they ignore us. Nothing has changed. They're just going through the motions, so they can tell the public they're doing something different."

When is participatory planning not appropriate?

There are also some general guidelines for when a participatory planning process may not be appropriate at all, including:

• A grant may have to be written immediately, for instance, or a situation - youth violence, perhaps - may have reached such crisis proportions that it must be addressed immediately. In such a circumstance, it may be possible to do some participatory planning after the fact, either to adjust the intervention before it begins, or to plan its next phase.
• When a community is so brutally divided, it's impossible to get all - or even any - of the rival factions to the same table.
• When there's no way to provide proper support - facilitation, structure, etc. - for the process.
• When members of the priority population choose not to participate or face barriers that make participation difficult. Organizations should seek to understand those barriers, respect people's choices about involvement, and provide meaningful opportunities to participate when possible.
• When an intervention requires specialized technical knowledge, organizations may need to combine technical expertise with community members' lived experience, local knowledge, and perspectives to support informed decision-making.
• When involving all or most stakeholders simply isn't logistically possible, because of distance, time, or other issues.
• When funding constraints or funders' regulations don't allow it.
• When there is no trust between your organization and the community. This may be because the organization is new and unproven, or because of past history. In the latter circumstance, it is important to reestablish trust, but it may not be possible to do this before the intervention needs to be planned.

Who should be involved in a participatory planning process?

The ideal answer here is everyone who is affected by the proposed intervention, but that's seldom possible, or even desirable. You may be talking about thousands of people, too many for an effective planning process. In reality, there should be strong and effective representation for everyone involved, including:

Targets of Change

People and communities most directly affected include those who experience the issue, participate in the intervention, or are intended to benefit from it. Whenever possible, they should have meaningful opportunities to help identify priorities, shape strategies, and participate in decisions that affect them. That could be very specific (e.g. adolescent mothers, for a job training program aimed at adolescent parents) or very general (the community as a whole, for a smoking prevention and cessation initiative aimed at everyone in the community).

There are really two groups to be considered here:

• Members of the priority community, both those on whom the intervention is specifically focused, and others who share their culture, age, language, or other characteristics.
• People whom the priority community sees as significant opinion makers. They may be members of the priority population itself, or outsiders - clergy, advisors, former community members who now move in circles of power, politicians, etc. - whom people in the priority community trust and rely on.

Agents of Change

Agents of change are the people who make or influence policy or public opinion. These include actual policy makers, but also encompass people influential in the community at large, who can help or block an intervention by their support or opposition.

Policy makers

• Local elected or appointed officials
• State or federal elected or appointed officials who have influence in the community or over the issue at which the intervention is aimed.

If elected officials agree to be involved in your planning, they'll often send aides to represent them. This can be preferable to the officials themselves attending, since the aides often have a great deal of influence over their bosses, and are also more likely to have the time to participate fully.

• Local public agency heads (public assistance, e.g.) who actually administer policy in the community. If they're involved from the beginning, they may be able to bend rules or otherwise alter their procedures to smooth the way for the intervention.
• Local university professors or researchers who are viewed as experts on the issue in question.

Influential people in the community

• Members of the business community. Businesses and business leaders may contribute knowledge of local economic conditions, relationships, skills, resources, and perspectives that can strengthen an intervention. They may also be directly affected by issues involving workforce development, employee health, insurance, environmental conditions, and other community concerns. Their participation can broaden partnerships and may contribute resources that help sustain the effort over time.
• Clergy and the faith community. In many communities, clergy wield great influence, and many see involvement in community issues as part of their spiritual mission. Faith-based groups, because of their cohesiveness, their sense of purpose, and their moral standing, can be powerful forces in a community.
• Natural leaders, those whom others respect and listen to.
• The media, or others who have a public platform.
• Directors or staff of other organizations affected by the problem or issue. Many of these people may be highly respected or well known in the community.

A community intervention may involve a number of organizations, public agencies and services, and other groups. A community initiative to offer treatment to people with substance use disorders, for instance, could involve, among others:

• Schools
• Police
• Local hospitals, clinics, and health maintenance organizations
• Services for youth
• Mental health centers
• Private therapists
• Employers
• United Way

Interested members of the community

These might include parents, youth, or school personnel, for instance, for an intervention dealing with youth. Many older adults have the time, the desire, and the experience to be excellent community volunteers. People with a personal or professional interest in the issue may also want to participate - parents whose children have had substance use challenges, graduate students, retired teachers or doctors.

Members of the organization itself

Administrators and line staff, volunteers, current participants, board members, and supporters.

What do you need to do to get a participatory planning process up and running?

Recruit stakeholders

The obvious first step toward starting a participatory planning process is finding people to participate. Some of that relies simply on networking and old-fashioned legwork, but there's a logical process that accompanies it as well.

Identify the stakeholders

How do you define stakeholders? The list of possible participants earlier in this section is one place to start. Your intervention may not need all, or even many of these groups or individuals. To determine who should participate, the best question to ask is "Who will be directly affected by this intervention?"

Answers here will vary greatly, depending upon the nature of the intervention. If the taxpayers will be asked to pay for it directly - through property taxes, for instance, as they would be for many school programs - then both community officials and ordinary taxpayers should have some voice in it. If the police or other community employees are to be asked to take on extra duties or to cooperate in specific ways to make the intervention work, they should be included in the planning.

These should always include, at the very least, members of the organization's staff and Board and the priority population. In general, it also makes sense to include members of the community, especially if:

• The intervention needs community support or participation in order to succeed
• The intervention will affect the community as a whole
• The community is being asked to change in some way - its attitudes, behavior, assumptions, bylaws, etc.

Even if the community is not a specific stakeholder, it may make sense to involve community members in a planning process. Every intervention needs some level of community support in order to succeed. Community participation in planning will help to assure that support.

Get the word out

If your process is meant to be as inclusive as possible, then you should be using as many avenues as possible to inform the community about it - press releases, newspaper stories, fliers, posters, and public service announcements (PSA's) on radio and television, as well as community presentations, personal contact (either face-to-face or by phone), mailings, etc. If you're trying to inform only specific groups in the community, start with people in those groups you already know. They'll help to spread the word to their friends and acquaintances, who'll pass it on further still. They can also help you decide where to place other information so the target groups will be likely to encounter it.

Be sure that your message is simple and clear, and in the languages that the community speaks. That means both using plain, understandable English, and using other languages spoken by people in the community. Your message may need to be in both English and Spanish, for instance, or in a number of languages, in order to reach everyone.

Be sure also that your message appears in places where it will be seen or heard by those it's aimed at. Supermarkets, laundromats, cafes, radio and TV stations serving specific language communities, particular agencies, etc. may be good places to post your message.

Convene the planning process

Choose someone to convene the process

Regardless of what happens afterwards, someone needs to call people together and run a first meeting. If that person is identified with a particular group, then that group will probably be seen as in charge of the planning process. Depending upon the community, it could be important to think carefully about who should be in that position.

Sometimes it is best to find someone from outside the group - often an elected official or other respected figure - to run a first meeting. This type of choice both lends credibility to the intervention, and identifies it as a community effort, rather than that of a particular organization.

In a situation where a diverse core group has initiated the process, it may make sense for that group to convene a first meeting. The group's chair might then be the convener. In other cases - particularly where the organization will need a large amount of community support to make it work - it may make sense to present the intervention as the project of your organization. In those situations, a Board chair or director would be the logical choice to convene the planning process.

Hold an initial meeting

An initial meeting might be open to a very large number of people (the whole community, or all of the priority population, for instance) or to a smaller group (one representative from each of several agencies and organizations, a few selected members of the target group, etc.). The time, place, and tone of this meeting are all important in making sure that people will be willing to participate in it and in the process that follows. Some things you can do to help make it successful:

• Before the meeting, try to personally invite as many people as possible. People are much more likely to come if they know someone cares about their being there.
• Plan meeting times around the convenience of those attending, rather than the convenience of the organization. Evenings, weekends - even holding two or more meetings at different times - may make it possible for more people to participate.
• Hold the meeting in a place that's convenient and comfortable for everyone involved. If the community is divided into factions, choose a neutral place that everyone considers "safe." If there's no such problem, choose a place that's relatively easy to find and reach for everyone (on a bus line, plenty of parking, equally convenient to several neighborhoods, centrally located in a rural area, etc.)
• Provide some food and drink. The presence of food reduces formality and makes things more comfortable.
• Consider carefully who'll run the meeting. This choice may dictate how many people are willing to get involved in the process.
• If the community is multilingual, make sure to have translators present, or to present everything in multiple languages, so that everyone feels included.
• Plan activities so that everyone at the meeting has a chance to be heard, either in the larger group or in a smaller one. You asked people there to participate in a planning process: they should see from the very beginning that you were serious about that, and that their ideas will be taken seriously.
• By the end of the meeting, there should be a clear next step, and everyone should know what it is. Nothing can sidetrack a participatory planning process more quickly than generating enthusiasm and leaving it with no place to go.

A large meeting is not always the best way to convene a process. In some communities, or with some groups, several smaller meetings, or meetings with one or two or three individuals may be the way to start. A large meeting may be intimidating to particular individuals or groups: they may not attend, or they may be unwilling to speak if they do attend. As with any process, it's important to start where the participants feel comfortable, and to work from there.

Maintain the planning process

Once the planning process has started, it has to be maintained. Participants have to continue to be interested, support has to be provided when it's needed, conflicts have to be resolved, methods have to be devised to keep the process reasonably efficient, goals and deadlines have to be set, etc.

Choose someone to guide the planning process

Someone - realistically, it's usually the director or another administrator of the organization that will conduct the intervention, but it could be a Board chair, an outside facilitator, or a community member - has to monitor what's happening and make sure that nothing derails the planning. Finding the right person to fill this role is extremely important. They have to be able to communicate well with everyone involved, to see the big picture as well as the details, and to deal gracefully with both interpersonal and logistical problems. (That's why an outside facilitator is sometimes a good investment.)

Do you need an outside facilitator? In a situation where divisions are deep, or where no one available has the needed skills to keep the planning process on track, there may be a need for a neutral and experienced facilitator. A facilitator with no personal stake in the process or the community may be able to see - and defuse - the dynamics among the groups involved in the process. Their skills may be helpful in navigating challenging group dynamics, addressing conflict constructively, and supporting respectful communication across different experiences, identities, and perspectives. They may also be able to make what is by nature a sloppy process more efficient and effective.

Whether your planning will need an outside facilitator or not depends largely on the character of your community and the character of the relationships among its different elements. A good facilitator generally doesn't come cheap, so if you need one, you'll have to decide whether you can afford to hire her. But you'll also have to decide whether you can afford not to hire them, if you want to plan an intervention that works.

Decide who will issue final approval on a plan

If, as is often the case, the actual planning is done by a relatively small group, there is usually a mechanism to have the plan approved by some larger or governing body.

This body might take one of several forms:

• A meeting of all stakeholders
• A diverse group chosen to oversee the intervention
• A community meeting
• The Board of the organization
• A very small group - the director and Board chair, for instance, or even just one of them

Determine how long the planning process will go on

The planning you want to do might be for a single initiative or campaign, or might encompass years of collaboration on working with a large and diverse population. If the planning group is meant to continue, either to furnish oversight of the final plan, or to keep developing and changing the intervention as circumstances and the community's needs change, an ongoing participatory approach may be even more important to the intervention's success.

How well you maintain the process once it's begun is just as important to its success as how well you start it. Remember that the planning process itself is only a beginning.

In Summary

A participatory planning process - one in which all the stakeholders are involved - is often the most effective and inclusive way to plan a community intervention. A participatory process provides community ownership and support of the intervention; information about community history, politics, and past mistakes; and respect and a voice for everyone. It also takes time, care, mutual respect, and commitment.

In order to conduct such a process well, you have to carefully consider what level of participation is most appropriate under the circumstances. You also must identify the stakeholders, and make sure they all get to the table, using communication techniques designed to reach them.

Care must be taken in getting the process under way. The person and methods chosen to convene it can both send messages about your intentions, and have a great effect on which and how many participants you attract.

Finally, the process must be maintained over time, so that momentum will not be lost. If you can manage a planning process that meets all these requirements, the chances are that you will come up with a successful community intervention, one that truly works and meets the community's needs.

Example: Participatory Planning in The Literacy Project

In 1995, the Massachusetts Department of Education offered a three-year grant to communities to try to reach and serve the families of children aged three and under. Their idea was that, by providing services to families and children at risk, communities might be able to head off some of the problems these children might have later, when they got to school. The Request for Proposals (RFP) had a number of requirements, a major one being an oversight board that included people from all elements of the community that might be involved with families - schools and day care providers, hospitals and other health agencies, human service providers, parents, municipal government, etc.

The largely rural western Massachusetts county of Hampshire also contains several colleges and the main campus of the state university. At the urging of its Human Service Coordinator, Hampshire County decided to apply as a county, and got permission to do so. This decision made the application process much more complicated, because the Director and the agency convening the process had to contact and involve the appropriate people from 20 or so towns scattered over several hundred square miles.

Less than 10 days after the RFP came out, I, as director of an adult literacy program that operated in Hampshire County, sat at a meeting with several school principals and counselors; three doctors; two hospital administrators; three parents; the directors of a day care center, a mental health agency, a battered women's shelter, an agency that operated homeless shelters, a pregnant-and-parenting teen program, an information and referral service, and an anti-poverty agency; and representatives from the Department of Social Services, the county welfare office, the Office for Children, the  Department of Developmental Services (DDS), and other state and local agencies; as well as the County Human Services Coordinator.

We spent two long but productive meetings thinking through and planning the grant proposal, which was then written by an administrator at the anti-poverty agency. Using ideas from nearly everyone in the group, the proposal, rather than concentrating on a specific program, envisioned an intervention that encompassed supporting parents in whatever ways they needed. It created a safety net for parents and children that stretched across the whole county, and included both specific and general services and activities. In short, it was an intervention designed for a whole county, rather than a single community, and one that recognized that the needs of parents in that county were varied and constantly changing.

Much to everyone's surprise, our proposal was one of only a small number funded across the state. Ours was the only proposal that aimed at more than a single community, but it had county-wide support, and everyone was committed to making it work. The group that had been assembled to write the proposal agreed to stay together and serve as the oversight board, and the information and referral center housed the program 's coordinator and served as a clearinghouse for issues related to the grant.

The grant program worked on two levels. On one level, it ran activities and programs in different areas of the county - often tied into the already-existing work of county agencies, schools, hospitals, and the like - geared to the needs of families with kids three and under. Some of the grant money was used for outreach to families, particularly those often underserved, to encourage their attendance. Activities and programs included a semi-annual vaccination celebration (a fair with clowns, refreshments, and entertainment at which kids could get both vaccinated and face-painted), and pre- and postnatal parenting classes at one of the hospitals.

The larger part of the grant, however, was directed toward meeting needs expressed directly by parents and providers, and toward creating and maintaining a flexible network of integrated services and support for families that could be activated when a need or a problem arose. A small amount of the grant was used, for instance, to run a "taxi service" of volunteer drivers who helped parents without transportation (remember, this is a rural area, where the nearest store or population center can be ten or more miles away) to get to appointments with the pediatrician or welfare office, to do shopping, or to pick up children from day care.

The board met officially four times a year, and small groups of it met far more often to work out the details of specific new or ongoing activities. More important, the organizations involved worked together far more and in a far more focused way to meet the needs of mutual participants, and to try to narrow in on issues pertaining to young children and their families.

A good example of how the grant worked at its best took place in my own adult literacy program. At one of the Hampshire County sites, a female learner had just had a baby, whom she often brought to class. The instructor, himself the father of two young children, was very concerned about the well-being of the child, who was being fed solids at two months, and who was often ignored for long periods of time. Ultimately, the instructor decided he had to intervene.

He had a conference with the mother, at which he explained that he was concerned for the child, and that he wanted her to get help if she was to continue to participate in the literacy program. Rather than simply leaving her on her own to find assistance, however, he was able to put her directly in touch with a pediatrician, a parenting program, WIC (child nutrition), transportation assistance, and other help, all of which he had arranged through connections set up by the grant. He accompanied her to some of the initial meetings, and "handed her off" to specific individuals who, he knew, would establish relationships with her and help her through the process of learning to take better care of herself and her child.

Far from being resentful, the woman welcomed the help, and the instructor almost immediately noticed a marked improvement in the way she dealt with her infant. Furthermore, both mother and child were now getting basic services - regular medical checkups, help with proper nutrition - that would go toward keeping them healthy over the long term. The lives of that mother and baby were, in some sense, saved by the safety net the grant had set in place. And the flexibility of that net had been made possible by the participatory planning process that had generated the original grant proposal.

The Department of Education had been profoundly dubious when Hampshire County had submitted a county-wide proposal, and had funded it, at least in part, just to see what would happen. The Hampshire County program was, in fact, one of the most successful in the state. The participation in the grant was real and ongoing, and - perhaps even more important - ultimately involved the people most concerned with the issue.

Although I continued, as director of my program to attend board meetings, I also made sure that the instructors who ran the Hampshire County sites of our program were involved, and that their voices were heard in planning and committee sessions. Other program directors did the same, so that by the time I left my program, two or three years later, most of the work of the grant program was being accomplished by community members and by the line staff of the organizations involved, rather than by administrators.

What is a participatory planning approach?

___You know that a participatory planning approach means that all stakeholders' voices are heard and respected, and that everyone has some role in decision-making.

What are the advantages of a participatory planning approach?

___Participation carries with it feelings of ownership, and builds a strong base for the intervention in the community

___It ensures that the intervention will have more credibility in all segments of the community because it was planned by a group representing all segments of the community

___It brings a broader range of people to the planning process provides access to a broader range of perspectives and ideas

___Avoids pitfalls caused by ignorance of the realities of the community or the target population

___It involves important players from the outset

___It can provide an opportunity for often-disenfranchised groups to be heard

___It teaches skills which last far beyond the planning process,and can help to improve the community over the long term

___It can bring together and establish ties among community members who might normally have no contact

___It builds trust, both between your organization and the community and among the individuals involved

___It generally reflects the mission and goals of grass roots and community-based organizations

___It implies respect for everyone in the community

___It is generally effective

___It does things the way they should be done

What are the disadvantages of a participatory planning approach?

___A participatory process takes longer

___Members of the target population or the community may not agree with the "experts " about what is needed

___Lots of education may be needed, both for community members and the organization

___One determined individual can wreck the whole process if he's not handled well

___It may be difficult to assure that all the right people get to the table

___A participatory planning process takes patience and commitment on everyone's part

What are the levels of participatory planning?

___Information

___Consultation

___Deciding together

___Acting together

___Supporting local initiatives

When is participatory planning appropriate?

___Information-only may be appropriate when:

• The course of action has already been decided - by a funder, for instance
• You're simply reporting on something that's already in progress
• You're keeping people informed so that they'll have the information to be part of a participatory effort later

___Consultation-only may be appropriate when:

• You want to evaluate or improve existing services
• There are limited options, and you're trying to choose among them
• There are technical reasons - again, perhaps because of a funder - why only certain people or groups can be officially involved in the planning process

___Acting together may be appropriate when:

• The intervention will be more effective than if it were run by a single entity
• There is a funder's requirement for community oversight
• There is commitment to the development of a real partnership
• Everyone benefits from acting together
• One goal of the intervention is the eventual assumption of leadership or the learning of leadership skills by the target population and/or others in the community

___Supporting local initiatives may be appropriate when:

• There is a commitment to community empowerment.
• The community has the desire and at least some of the tools to start and run a successful intervention.
• There is a commitment to provide training and support where needed.
• Your organization can only provide support, or can only run an intervention for a short time.

When isn't participatory planning appropriate?

___When there's simply no time

___When a community is so brutally divided, it's impossible to get all - or even any - of the rival factions to the same table

___When there's no way to provide proper support - facilitation, structure, etc. - for the process

___When the target population is simply not interested in participating, and just wants the organization to take care of it

___When the intervention rests on technical knowledge of a kind that the target population and community members simply don't have

___When involving all or most stakeholders simply isn't logistically possible, because of distance, time, or other issues

___When funding constraints or funders' regulations don't allow it

___When there is no trust between your organization and the community

Who should be involved in a participatory planning process?

___Targets of change

• Members of the target community
• People whom the target community sees as significant opinion makers

___Agents of change

• Policy makers
• Influential people in the community

___Interested members of the community at large

___Members of the organization itself

What do you have to do to get a participatory planning process up and running?

___You've identified all the individuals and groups who need to be involved

___You've gotten the message about the planning process out to everyone who needs to be informed

___You've chosen someone to convene the process

___You've held an initial meeting, for which:

• You've personally invited as many people as possible
• You've planned meeting times around the convenience of those attending, rather than the convenience of the organization
• You've held the meeting in a place that's convenient and comfortable for everyone involved
• You've provided some food and drink
• You've considered carefully who'll run the meeting
• If the community is multilingual, you've made sure to have translators present, or to present everything in multiple languages, so that everyone feels included
• You've planned activities so that everyone at the meeting has a chance to be heard, either in the larger group or in a smaller one
• By the end of the meeting, there was a clear next step, and everyone knew what it was

___You've chosen someone to guide the planning process

___You've decided who will approve a final plan

___You've decided how long the planning process will go on

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• Who are the people and partners involved in community change?

• Who are the people and communities most directly affected by the problem or issue?

• Who can help contribute to improvement?

• What do partners in change do?

• How to identify people most directly affected and partners in change

Who are the people and partners involved in community change?

When doing work in your community, the first thing to decide is what issue or problem you want to address. Whether you are teaching children to read or trying to create safer neighborhoods, it's your group's reason for being; it's what you're all about.

You and your organization are not alone. There are people who can benefit from an initiative and people who can contribute knowledge, experience, resources, and support. We need to be clear about who should benefit--youth and parents, for example--and who can help address the issue or problem--including youth, parents and guardians, teachers, service providers, and others. Knowing who these people are is an important step.

In this section, we'll help you identify the people and communities your organization or initiative is trying to reach and involve, as well as the people, organizations, and institutions that can help contribute to positive change. We'll also consider what these partners can do and how you can develop a plan to make sure you have included everyone who can benefit, contribute, or offer important perspectives--and not just the most obvious participants.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? It can be. It's a question of being clear, complete, and making sure you look at every angle.

Who are the people and communities most directly affected by the problem or issue?

You're probably trying to change a certain behavior, condition, or outcome, such as reducing harmful substance use or creating decent jobs. Sometimes, the issue you are addressing is clear; other times, the root causes are less obvious. Children falling asleep in class, for example, might be affected by not having had breakfast rather than by a problem in the school itself. Limited access to food, in turn, may be connected to a family experiencing poverty, inadequate job opportunities, transportation barriers, or other conditions. Talking with people who experience the issue can help you gain a better understanding of what conditions and behaviors contribute to the problem or issue.

Like identifying the root causes of a problem, understanding who is most directly affected and who should be involved can be relatively simple or more complex.

Generally, people connected to the issue will fall into two broad categories:

• People who directly experience the problem or experience increased risk
• People whose actions, decisions, policies, or practices influence the problem or its possible solutions

Identifying who directly experiences an issue may sometimes be straightforward. If you are trying to increase immunization among children under two years of age in an urban community, for example, those children, along with their parents or guardians and health care providers, may be among the people most directly connected to the effort. People who inject drugs are important partners in HIV prevention efforts because they may experience increased risk of HIV transmission and can provide essential knowledge about effective prevention strategies.

Sometimes, however, the people most directly affected aren't the same people whose actions or decisions need to change. In the immunization example above, children under two years of age can't immunize themselves. Parents and guardians, health care providers, health systems, and others who influence access to vaccination may therefore also need to be involved. In this case, the effort should consider people whose actions, decisions, or practices influence the issue.

Examples of these people include:

• Peers
• Parents and caregivers
• Service providers
• Teachers
• Business owners and retailers (e.g., those who sell tobacco or alcohol)
• Elected and appointed officials

As you work on an initiative, you will want to consider both people who directly experience the issue and people who can influence the conditions connected to it. Often, people with lived experience can also be important leaders and partners in creating solutions.

For example, a community initiative to improve public transportation might use:

• A media campaign to increase public awareness of transportation challenges and engage people who would benefit from improved transportation
• A letter-writing campaign directed at public officials who have influence over resource allocations for improved transportation

Who can help contribute to improvement?

Next, you'll want to identify potential partners in change. Who can influence the people, policies, systems, and conditions connected to the problem or issue? These are individuals or groups who can contribute knowledge, relationships, resources, leadership, or decision-making authority to help address issues that matter to your community.

Sometimes, partners in change are members of the same groups as the people most directly affected. You might concentrate part of your "Healthy Eating" campaign on high school science and health teachers, for example, so that they can share nutrition information with their students. In this instance, teachers may both participate in changes themselves and help support broader improvements. Similarly, people with lived experience of gang involvement may contribute to efforts to reduce gang-related violence; peers may influence the academic achievement of other youth; and people who have experienced trauma or loss may help others with similar experiences cope with the effects.

Remember that successful community change depends heavily on relationships and collaboration. Ideally, people experiencing the issue are deeply engaged as partners in change. Success is more likely when people spend time together, build trust, care about each other, and recognize each other's contributions. Teachers may be more effective partners when they have the support of parents, just as parents may be more effective when their efforts are supported by teachers.

What do partners in change do?

Partners in change can contribute in a variety of ways. If they are working closely with someone who is directly affected by the issue, they may do the following:

• Establish a strong relationship with the person most affected. When people see someone as credible, trustworthy, and caring, they may feel more comfortable sharing their experiences, concerns, and ideas and working together toward change.
• Understand the issue or problem. In the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his young daughter she must walk around in other people's shoes if she really wants to understand them. A strong partner in change takes a similar approach. To support meaningful change, they need to understand the person's experiences, circumstances, strengths, and the conditions influencing the issue.
• Support informed choices and opportunities for change. Partners can help people understand available options, identify their own goals, and recognize opportunities and resources that may help them move toward those goals. A mentor, for example, might encourage a student by helping them recognize their strengths, explore educational opportunities, and develop a plan for what they want to pursue after high school.
• Help make change possible. Deciding to make a change is an important first step, but people may also need information, resources, encouragement, supportive policies, services, or other forms of assistance. Partners in change can help identify and provide the support needed to move from intention to action.
• Help sustain change. Meaningful change often takes time and ongoing support. Whether someone is returning to school, reducing or stopping substance use, beginning a new job, or pursuing another goal, supportive relationships and access to resources can help them continue making progress.

How do you identify people most directly affected and partners in change?

So, the next question is: How can you identify everyone who can benefit, contribute, and help? A first step is to answer the following questions. Just for your use, you might want to grab a piece of paper and write down your answers. Often, the act of writing something works as a brainstorming technique, and you'll come up with more ideas than you thought possible. You might do this with other members of your group and with people who experience the issue; the more perspectives you include, the stronger your understanding is likely to be.

• What is the problem or issue you are trying to address? What really contributes to it? As we mentioned above, you might want to talk with people who experience the issue or do research to better understand the root causes. You might also want to try the "But why" technique. This method examines a problem by asking what caused it. Each time an answer is given, a follow-up, "But why?" is asked.
• Who might resist the changes you want to make, and why? This is probably information you will want to use later, but it may be helpful to understand these perspectives from the beginning.

Now, you're ready to identify the people most directly affected and the partners who may contribute to change. As you did before, write down and brainstorm answers to the following questions. When you're done, review your answers and identify the people and groups who should be involved.

For people and communities most directly affected:

• Who is affected by the problem? Think carefully and go beyond the most obvious people. Consider who directly experiences the issue, whose decisions or circumstances influence it, and what broader conditions may be contributing. For example, if children are struggling in school, consider the perspectives of students, families, teachers, school leaders, community organizations, and public officials, as well as factors such as class size, transportation, access to resources, and opportunities for family engagement. Write down all of the answers that come up. You can always refine the list later.
• Who has been previously affected by the problem? Should they still be supported or involved? For example, if you are running an immunization program for children under two, ask whether there are older children who did not receive vaccinations when they were younger and could be reached now.
• Who are the peers of those affected? If you are focusing on youth violence, for example, you might include a broad range of young people in your action plan, not only those who have directly experienced or been involved in violence.

For partners in change:

• Who has the ability or authority to help bring about change?
• Who has the time, resources, knowledge, relationships, or desire to contribute to change?
• Who might be able to make a difference if your initiative engages them as a partner?
• Who has a relationship with the people most directly affected? Whom do community members trust? Who do they turn to for information, guidance, or support?
• Think about people who have lived experience with the issue. They may be some of the strongest partners in change. For example, a person in recovery from a substance use disorder may be able to provide meaningful peer support to someone who is working toward recovery. They can draw on lived experience, understand many of the challenges involved, and offer support without judgment.

For both:

• Have you thought about people from all parts of your community? Are there different community sectors (e.g., churches and faith communities; schools; businesses) that might become involved?
• Who does your organization particularly want to reach or work with? With whom do you think you can be particularly effective? What relationships or contacts do you already have that could help?

In Summary

Identifying the people and communities most directly affected by an issue and the partners who can contribute to change is an important step in your planning process. It helps put the work in context and reminds you that community change is a shared effort. People who experience an issue are not simply recipients of programs or services; they may also bring important knowledge, lived experience, leadership, relationships, and ideas for solutions. By involving people who can both benefit and contribute, your initiative can develop approaches that are more responsive to the community and more likely to create meaningful and lasting change.

Example: Targets and agents of change for child abuse prevention program

Below is a filled out example of a planning sheet that can be used to help determine the targets and agents of change for your initiative. In the Tools section, you'll find a blank copy you can print out and use for your organization.

What behaviors and conditions contribute to the issue or problem?	Who are the people who experience or contribute to the issue? (Targets of Change)	Who are the people who can contribute to improvement? (Agents of Change)
Poverty / economic stress Poor anger management skills Substance use Lack of parenting skills Family history of abuse	Parents and guardians Relatives	Teachers Ministers Neighbors Parents and Guardians Relatives Service providers

 

Tool: Planning Sheet

Fill out the following sheet as part of your planning process. You can use the information to decide who can benefit and contribute when you write or revise your action plan.

Planning Sheet: Connecting targets and agents of change

Community issue or problem: ____________________________________________________

What behaviors and conditions contribute to the issue or problem?	Who are the people who experience or contribute to the issue? (Targets of Change)	Who are the people who can contribute to improvement? (Agents of Change)

 

___You understand that targets of change are people who experience the problem or issue or are directly at risk and who contribute to the problem through their actions or inactions

___You understand that agents of change are those who can influence the people and conditions that contribute to the problem or issue

___You understand that targets and agents of change may be the same people

You know what agents of change do:

___They establish strong relationships with the people most affected

___They diagnose the issue or problem

___They convince the people experiencing the issue of the need for (and the possibility of) a change

___They help make that change happen

___They help maintain that change

You know how to identify targets and agents of change:

___You know the problem or issue you want to address

___You know who might resist the changes you want to make

For targets of change:

___You know who is affected by the problem

___You know who has previously been affected by the problem

___You know who the peers of those affected are

For agents of change:

___You know who has the power to bring about change

___You know who has the time, resources, and desire to bring about change

___You know who might be able to do it, if your organization can convince them

___You know who already has a relationship with your targets of change

___You have considered people who were (or are) targets

For both:

___You have thought about people from all parts of your community

___You have considered those your organization particularly wants to target or work with

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

An outreach worker, hired to help establish an English language learning program in a community with a large Portuguese-speaking population, was having difficulty connecting with potential participants. Partially because of language differences and partially because he was new to the community, his early outreach efforts had limited success. He knew he needed help from people who already had trusted relationships within the community.

The outreach worker decided to contact leaders from two important community institutions: a local soccer club and a Catholic church. The director of the soccer club and the priest both recognized a need for English language learning opportunities and agreed to help organize an informational meeting.

The priest shared information about the program with members of the congregation and invited people to attend the meeting. The director of the soccer club personally invited community members who might be interested and introduced the outreach worker at the club, where he was able to talk informally with potential participants and learn more about their interests and needs.

By the time of the meeting, word had spread through the community, and the hall was full. More than 40 people signed up for classes, and many said they would share information with friends and family. When classes began several weeks later, they were well attended from the start.

This story is an example of working through community sectors – in this case, faith and cultural/recreational networks – to connect with people through trusted relationships. We'll briefly examine who should be involved in community change and then explore how community sectors can help you reach, engage, and collaborate with people throughout the community.

What do we mean by community sectors?

“Community sectors” can mean a number of different things. In some cases, it describes broad categories – the public and private sectors, for example, referring respectively to government-related organizations and those outside government. Sometimes, the term “community sector” refers to community-based organizations, institutions, and initiatives, as distinguished from those operated by state or national governments, large corporations, or international organizations.

In this section, when we refer to “community sectors,” we’re pointing to the various groups, institutions, networks, and areas of community life that people may be connected to through common social, political, economic, cultural, professional, or religious interests. In some cases, membership in a sector may be obvious or intentional (business owners as part of the “business sector,” for example). In others, people may not think of themselves in those terms (parents may not think of themselves as part of the “education sector”). Many individuals may belong to, or have contact with, several sectors.

So what are these sectors? We’d be hard pressed to name all the sectors that exist in every community, but there are numerous categories that are common across many communities:

• Health. This includes medical and mental health professionals (physicians, nurses, psychologists, therapists, physical therapists, etc.), pharmacists and pharmacies, hospitals and other inpatient facilities, clinics, complementary health practitioners, community health workers, and public health agencies and systems.
• Education. Public and private K-12 schools, early childhood programs, colleges and universities, school boards, school administrators, teachers, other educational staff, parents and caregivers, students, state boards of education, adult education programs, and English language learning programs.
• Law and justice. Local and state law enforcement agencies, courts, judges, probation and parole officers, prosecutors, public defenders, legal aid organizations, restorative justice programs, and other justice-system partners.
• Government. Regional, provincial, state, local, and tribal governments, agencies, departments, and officials, both elected and appointed.
• Business. This sector can range from self-employed workers and locally owned small businesses to large employers and multinational corporations with a local presence.
• Youth. Young people themselves and the organizations, programs, schools, clubs, mentors, and other adults who work directly with them. There may be considerable overlap with education, families, human services, culture, and sports and recreation.
• Families and caregivers. Whether families and caregivers are viewed as a separate community sector may depend on the issue. They may be particularly important in efforts involving children, young people, older adults, people with disabilities, or others who receive family or caregiving support.
• Media and communications. This may include newspapers, magazines, radio, television, online news organizations, podcasts, social media platforms, community newsletters, content creators, and other communication channels.
• Human services. This sector generally includes nonprofit, public, and volunteer organizations that provide services such as workforce development, food assistance, housing support, older adult services, adult education, disability services, immigrant and refugee support, advocacy, and other community resources.
• Faith communities. Places of worship, faith leaders, members, and religious or spiritually based organizations representing the traditions present in the community.
• Service and membership organizations. Local, national, and international service organizations, professional associations, fraternities and sororities, veterans’ organizations, social clubs, and other membership-based groups.
• Community advocacy and volunteer groups. These might focus on public policy, support for local institutions, economic development, neighborhood improvement, environmental issues, community events, or other priorities identified by community members.
• Arts and culture. This sector includes musicians, dancers, writers, actors, designers, visual artists, cultural organizations, theaters, museums, galleries, arts educators, production staff, and community members who participate in or support the arts.
• Housing and development. This sector may include public and nonprofit housing organizations, tenant organizations, housing advocates, property owners and managers, developers, planners, affordable housing providers, and others involved in residential and commercial development.
• Sports and recreation. This sector might include sports clubs, recreation departments, amateur and professional athletic organizations, public and private recreation facilities, gyms, coaches, personal trainers, recreation leaders, camp staff, athletes, spectators, and supporters.
• Environment and natural resources. This sector may include environmental organizations, conservation groups, land trusts, farmers, hunters and anglers, outdoor recreation groups, scientists, environmental justice organizations, Indigenous communities, natural-resource professionals, and businesses whose work depends on healthy ecosystems.

A conservation land trust is an organization that protects land for conservation, recreation, agriculture, habitat, or other community purposes. It may purchase land directly or work with landowners to establish conservation agreements that limit future development while allowing the land to remain privately owned.

• Agriculture and food systems. This sector can include small and large farms, ranchers, agricultural workers, cooperatives, food processors, distributors, farmers markets, community gardens, food businesses, agricultural organizations, and consumers.

There can be, as we’ve discussed, a large amount of overlap among sectors. Furthermore, the list above is far from complete: a given community may have additional sectors because of its particular history, economy, geography, or culture. A community whose economy is largely agricultural, for instance, may have distinct dairy, grain, fruit-growing, or livestock networks. A culturally and linguistically diverse community may also have organizations and networks connected to particular racial, ethnic, cultural, immigrant, refugee, or language communities.

Sectors exist because of common interests, relationships, experiences, identities, or responsibilities shared by their members. As a result, they can be useful for building relationships and connecting with people who may want to participate in or contribute to a community effort.

Who are the people and partners involved in community change?

People and communities most directly affected

People and communities most directly affected include those who experience an issue, are affected by related policies or conditions, or stand to benefit from an effort. They may also be important leaders, decision-makers, advocates, and partners in creating solutions.

In some cases, an effort may focus partly on individual behaviors – such as supporting people who want to stop smoking or helping people manage chronic health conditions. In other cases, the most important changes may involve organizations, policies, services, systems, or environmental conditions rather than individual behavior.

Examples of people or groups who may be directly affected include:

• People managing health conditions who may benefit from supportive services, accessible health care, healthy environments, or changes they choose to make in their daily routines.
• People who use products associated with health risks, such as tobacco or alcohol, and communities affected by how those products are marketed or sold.
• People with substance use disorders or people seeking recovery support.
• Young people affected by or involved in community violence.
• People seeking employment or experiencing barriers to employment.
• People seeking literacy, digital skills, workforce skills, or instruction in a community’s primary language.
• People who are incarcerated or returning to the community after incarceration.
• People experiencing homelessness or housing instability.
• Farmers and agricultural communities seeking environmentally and economically sustainable practices.
• Individuals, businesses, or industries whose practices contribute to pollution and who can help reduce environmental harm.
• Developers and housing partners who can contribute to affordable, accessible, and environmentally responsible development.

Developers may also be important partners when an effort seeks to change policies, incentives, regulations, or development practices to encourage community-responsive practices.

• Legislators and other policymakers, such as school boards, boards of health, and regulatory agencies, whose decisions can influence discrimination, food access, neighborhood investment, workplace safety, worker protections, education, transportation, housing, health, and other community conditions.
• Media and communications organizations, which can help explain issues, share community perspectives, and increase public awareness.

Other people and communities may benefit from changes without necessarily needing to change their own behavior. Examples include:

• People and families seeking affordable, stable housing
• Students attending schools with limited resources or inadequate facilities
• Individuals or communities affected by social, economic, or political discrimination
• People with disabilities
• Individuals or communities without reliable access to clean drinking water or sanitation
• Communities with limited access to health care
• People experiencing food insecurity or malnutrition
• People and communities exposed to environmental hazards or pollution
• Workers exposed to hazardous substances or unsafe workplace conditions

People most directly affected by an issue should not be viewed only as beneficiaries of an intervention. They may also have essential knowledge, lived experience, leadership, and ideas about solutions. Community efforts are often stronger when people most affected have meaningful opportunities to identify priorities, shape strategies, advocate for change, and participate in implementation and evaluation.

Partners in change

Partners in change are people, organizations, institutions, and networks that can help create positive change. They may contribute lived experience, relationships, decision-making authority, expertise, resources, advocacy, services, or community leadership.

In many cases, people most directly affected by an issue and partners in change are the same people. For example, residents affected by housing affordability may also be advocates, organizers, advisory-board members, or leaders working to change housing policy.

Partners in change may also include public officials, media organizations, families, educators, health professionals, businesses, community organizations, and others whose participation can strengthen an effort.

Some common partners in change include:

• Legislators and other public officials
• Media and communications organizations
• Health care professionals, community health workers, and health administrators
• Teachers, educators, and school counselors
• Parents, caregivers, and other family members
• Peers
• People whose lived experience provides valuable knowledge and credibility, such as people with experience in violence-prevention efforts, recovery from substance use disorders, homelessness, disability advocacy, or other community issues
• Business owners, employers, and organizational leaders
• Community leaders – including people with formal leadership roles and those who are trusted because of their experience, relationships, fairness, knowledge, or service to the community

Sometimes an entire sector may be important to involve. The health sector, for example, can be an important partner when efforts seek to improve health systems, public health policy, health equity, or other community conditions.

Why use community sectors to reach and engage people and partners?

Community sectors can help you connect with people through organizations, relationships, and networks they already know and trust. They can also help broaden participation and bring additional knowledge and resources into an effort. Some reasons for working through community sectors include:

• To connect with people who may face barriers to participation. Some people may have limited contact with formal organizations because of language, transportation, accessibility, past experiences, work schedules, immigration concerns, geographic isolation, or other barriers. Trusted community organizations, cultural groups, faith communities, neighborhood networks, and other partners may help create more accessible and comfortable ways to participate.
• To ensure representation from across the community. It is important to include people who will implement, experience, or be affected by an effort. Working through different community sectors can help bring a broader range of perspectives into planning, implementation, and evaluation.
• To build trust. Community sectors can connect your effort with trusted people and organizations. These relationships can provide a foundation for long-term collaboration and can also strengthen trust among sectors that may not have worked together before.
• To draw on knowledge from different parts of the community. People in different sectors may bring knowledge of community history, previous efforts, relationships, strengths, priorities, barriers, and potential areas of conflict. This knowledge can strengthen planning and implementation.
• To bring sectors together. Different sectors may have limited opportunities to communicate or collaborate. Bringing them into the same effort can help build relationships and lay the groundwork for future collaboration.
• To raise awareness of the issue throughout the community. Community sectors often have established ways of communicating with members and partners. These networks can help share accurate information and community perspectives.
• To build broad community support. When people and organizations from different sectors participate meaningfully in an effort, they can share information through their own networks, encourage others to participate, and strengthen community ownership.

How do you use community sectors to reach and engage people and partners?

Working through community sectors is often easier when you already have relationships in the sectors you hope to involve. If you don’t, this may be a good opportunity to begin building them. The following steps can help you identify and engage the people and partners who should be involved.

Determine whom you need to reach and engage

This first step is closely connected to your strategy. What changes are you hoping to support, and who should be involved in making them happen? If you’re starting an advocacy campaign, you may want to engage policymakers as well as people directly affected by the issue. If you’re providing a service, you’ll want to connect with potential participants and the people or organizations they trust. If you’re trying to increase public awareness, you may want to involve media and communications partners.

In many cases, you’ll need to engage several different individuals and groups. An advocacy effort might involve legislators as well as community members with lived experience of the issue. Their stories, knowledge, and perspectives can help policymakers and the broader public understand why change matters. In recruiting participants for a service, you might also work with educators, families, community organizations, faith communities, or others who already have trusted relationships with potential participants.

What do you mean by “reach and engage?”

Different efforts have different goals for communication and engagement. Among the most common are:

• Share information. You may simply want people to know about an issue, resource, opportunity, or service.
• Encourage a specific action, such as attending a meeting, completing a survey, contacting a public official, accessing a service, or participating in a community activity.
• Support healthier or safer choices. For example, a tobacco-prevention campaign might provide young people with information about nicotine addiction, industry marketing practices, health effects, and resources for quitting.
• Invite people to an event, such as a vaccination clinic, job fair, community forum, workshop, or advocacy event.
• Connect people with a service or resource, such as workforce development, mental health services, a domestic violence program, housing services, food assistance, adult education, or community arts programming.
• Invite volunteers or community partners to participate in events, programs, outreach, planning, or other activities.
• Build public support for an event, program, initiative, or policy proposal.
• Engage in advocacy or influence policy. This may involve meeting directly with policymakers, sharing community perspectives, building coalitions, using media, or mobilizing public participation.

Reaching and engaging people can therefore involve much more than simply spreading information. It may include relationship building, listening, personal invitations, community conversations, partnerships, and creating meaningful opportunities for participation.

Decide what sectors might need to be involved to reach the desired group(s)

You might have to do some research here. Remember the importance of the soccer club and church to the Portuguese-speaking community in the introduction to this section? What organizations, networks, institutions, or groups are important to the people you hope to engage? Whom do they trust? Where do they get information? Where do they already gather or participate?

One group might be best connected through faith communities, another through schools, neighborhood organizations, cultural organizations, social media networks, or trusted community leaders. Public officials may be reached through professional relationships, community organizations, constituents, advocacy groups, or other networks.

Other sectors that might help are those people interact with regularly – businesses, community organizations, media outlets, schools, health care providers, libraries, recreation programs, and others. If these partners can share your information or help facilitate participation through their regular activities, they may help broaden your reach.

Determine who in a given sector is the best contact, and establish that contact

Using community sectors effectively depends on understanding which people and organizations are trusted and credible within a particular community. The fact that an organization serves a population does not necessarily mean that everyone in that population trusts it. In many cases, individual staff members, community leaders, peer advocates, or other trusted messengers may have especially strong relationships.

This is where existing relationships can be valuable. If your current contact isn’t the best person to connect with the community you hope to engage, they may be able to suggest someone else and provide an introduction. If you don’t already have contacts, take time to begin building relationships.

Making contacts in various community sectors

Personal introductions can be helpful when building new relationships. If you don’t know anyone in a sector who can help you get started, ask colleagues, community members, participants, or partners whether they know someone who would be appropriate to contact.

If a personal introduction isn’t possible, reach out using the communication method that is most appropriate for the person or organization. This might be email, phone, social media, an online contact form, or an in-person conversation. Briefly introduce yourself, explain why you are reaching out, and be clear about what you hope to discuss.

If you have no connection at all, you may need to contact several people before finding the right person. Community directories, organizational websites, social media, local events, and recommendations from other partners can help identify potential contacts.

A good starting point is often someone who knows many of the people or organizations you hope to involve. Depending on the community and issue, that might be a community organizer, cultural organization leader, faith leader, neighborhood association representative, librarian, Chamber of Commerce staff member, health care professional, school staff member, or public official.

There is no single best communication method for every community or sector. Some people prefer email, others phone calls, text messages, social media, scheduled meetings, or in-person conversations. When possible, use the communication methods people themselves prefer and make it easy for them to respond.

Clarify what you’re asking for

Why do you want to connect with people? What are you asking them to do? These are questions most people will want answered when you contact them. Be prepared to briefly explain your organization or effort, what you hope to accomplish, why you believe their perspective or participation matters, and what you are asking from them.

Whatever the answers are, they should be clear, complete, and accurate. Be transparent about the time, responsibilities, decisions, or resources involved. People should be able to make an informed choice about whether and how they want to participate.

Be creative

There are many ways to use community sectors to connect with people. We’ve largely focused on relationship-based approaches through individuals and institutions, but communication can also be built into places and activities people already use. For example, pharmacies might share information about a community blood-pressure program, libraries might promote adult learning opportunities, or arts organizations might share information about a local initiative in their programs and newsletters.

Use media and communication channels people already use

Media and communications cut across nearly every community sector. Depending on whom you are trying to reach, you might use local news outlets, community newsletters, social media, podcasts, streaming platforms, text-message networks, radio, television, community websites, or other channels. The key is to use communication channels that the people you hope to engage actually use and trust.

Another important network is made up of people already involved in your effort as participants, partners, volunteers, advisors, or community leaders. Ask them whether they can help connect with others who may want to participate. People already engaged in an effort can often be effective ambassadors because they can describe their own experiences and explain why participation matters.

These relationships can help your effort grow through existing community networks while also strengthening connections across sectors.

Keep at it

Engaging the first few participants or partners doesn’t mean your work is done. Programs and services may need ongoing outreach to remain accessible and responsive to the community. Advocacy efforts often require long-term relationship building and sustained participation. Continue listening, communicating, inviting new perspectives, and strengthening partnerships throughout the life of the effort.

In Summary

Whether your goal is to share information, provide a service, run a program or initiative, improve environmental or social conditions, or pursue advocacy, you’ll need to connect with people and organizations throughout the community. One way to do that is through community sectors – the groups, institutions, networks, and areas of community life connected by common interests, responsibilities, relationships, identities, or purposes.

The business sector, health sector, education sector, government sector, faith communities, cultural organizations, community-based organizations, and many other sectors can all contribute different relationships, knowledge, perspectives, and resources.

In general, people are more likely to participate when information and invitations come through sources they know and trust. By building relationships across community sectors, listening to community members, and working with trusted partners, you can broaden participation, strengthen collaboration, and create community efforts that are more responsive, inclusive, and sustainable.

What do we mean by community sectors?

___Community sectors are the various groups that people in the larger community might be divided into for reasons of common social, political, economic, cultural, or religious interests

___Membership in sectors often overlaps

___Different communities may contain sectors specific to those types of communities

___Sectors that exist in many or most communities include:

• Health

• Education

• Law enforcement

• Government

• Business

• Youth

• Parents

• The media

• Human services

• Religion

• Service/fraternal organizations

• Community activist and volunteer groups

• Arts and culture

• Housing and development

• Sports and recreation

• The environment

• Agriculture

Who are the targets and agents of change?

___Targets of change are either those whose behavior you want to change or those who stand to benefit from the changes your effort aims to bring about

__ Primary targets of change are those whose behavior you’re trying to change directly

___Secondary targets of change are those who stand to benefit from changes in others’ behavior or in circumstances, rather than from changes in their own behavior

___Agents of change are those – policy makers, for example – who can help to bring change about

___Agents of change are often primary targets of change as well, especially in advocacy efforts

Why use community sectors to reach targets and agents of change?

___To reach hard-to-contact populations

___To ensure representation from all sectors of the community

___To build trust

___To take advantage of the knowledge of people in different sectors

___To bring sectors together

___To raise awareness of the issue throughout the community

___To gain widespread community support

How do you use community sectors to reach targets and agents of change?

___Determine whom you need to reach

___Decide what sectors might be needed to reach the desired group(s)

___Determine who in a given sector is the best contact, and establish that contact

___Clarify what you’re asking for

___Be creative

___Use the media to reach people through the channels they normally pay attention to

___Keep at it

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.