From People to Place and Power: Coalitions that Succeed by Grounding Efforts in Community Context
Guiding Collective Change Action Guides » From People to Place and Power: Coalitions that Succeed by Grounding Efforts in Community Context
What Works: Centering Community and Context to Drive Change
Placing your community and its context at the center of planning efforts is vital for lasting and meaningful change. But what does that really look like?
- It prioritizes listening to residents.
- It means seeking out and respecting diverse perspectives.
- It involves considering how local history has shaped current realities.
Practices like these contribute to creating an effort with a chance to make a transformative impact on the children and families in a community.
From People to Place and Power: Coalitions that Succeed by Grounding Efforts in Community Context draws on over a decade of evaluation with communities using the Evidence2Success® framework. Whether you are part of an existing coalition seeking evidence-based practices, or are just getting started with coalition work, this action guide is for you.
Get Started with Your Community
You can learn from other coalitions who used a five-phase process of community change that centered community context, by downloading these documents now:
You can move from the Preview to the Action Guide using hyperlinks when both documents are downloaded together.
We encourage you to print, share, and discuss these documents with fellow community members interested in understanding how other coalitions have benefited from using practices that center community context to create positive change. The guide’s key questions can guide your conversations about how to apply lessons learned in your community.
This is the fourth of five action guides based on core components of the Evidence2Success framework that has been implemented in the communities of Providence, Rhode Island; Selma City, Alabama; Kearns, Utah; Mobile, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and, Miami, Florida.
That’s when things caught on fire in a good way because these were the folks who were really like, these are our kids, these are our families, these are our neighborhoods.
– A coalition leader, on the impact of centering residents’ expertise and decision-making
