Community Coaching and Action
WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY COACHING AND ACTION PROCESS?
At this stage, communities bring together their understanding of poverty, their leadership skills and their vision to take action that will help them thrive. The delivery organizations and the community work together to sustain these efforts for the long-term by developing structures to continuously recruit and welcome new leaders, to document visible changes in methods of doing business and to broaden/deepen the community's leadership base. Communities implement inclusive processes and decision-making methods, including increasing trust among members, commitment to action, ability to take collective action, building collaborative capacity and learning and using an asset-based approach. This process is conducted by delivery organizations, which may draw from many resources (their own, their partners and many other types) to help communities build needed skills and achieve movement on their plans and goals for poverty reduction and leadership development.
Community work during coaching and action
- Community begins process by forming a local steering committee that will lead the community through the visioning stage.
- Community knows what poverty looks like and owns poverty as an issue.
- Community is able to articulate the link between action and poverty reduction.
- Community creates strategies to address local, regional, state and national policies.
- Community leadership works with community members and partners to implement and sustain changes that contribute to poverty reduction in their area.
- Community seeks other resources.
- Structures are in place and resources are leveraged to sustain action.
- Community implements action plan.
What can be expected from delivery organizations?
- Assisting with identifying and bringing in additional resources to implement a community's plan. For example, during the pilot program, communities chose different types of additional resources, based on their own community's needs: extra conflict resolution, study tours of neighboring communities to explore action they might take, entrepreneur training, youth and adult partnership training, and assistance setting up community foundations or nonprofit organizations.
- Helping communities achieve movement on their plans and goals for poverty reduction and leadership development.
- Looking for opportunities to sustain the community's work long term.
- Helping communities connect and move beyond their own community and resources.
- Assisting communities that completed all Horizons program segments to apply for up to $10,000 in follow-up grants to sustain their work in reducing poverty. What are the benefits to the community?
- Community-wide understanding and plan around poverty and leadership.
- Additional skills from consultants and outside resources.
- Development of strategies that link action to poverty reduction.
- Involvement/participation of a more diverse pool of community members.
- New connections within organizations and other communities to provide resources.
Evaluation: what happens during this segment?
- Community learns about its progress as part of evaluation and assessment results.
- Delivery organizations and evaluators monitor the community's ability to move vision into action.
- Delivery organizations assist communities enter information into the database to help track their progress.
- Some community members may participate in telephone interviews with evaluators