The eExtension Service in cooperation with the nation’s four Rural Development Centers is offering an online set of educational seminars titled: Understanding Communities and Their Dynamics. A number of Oregon Extension faculty members are participating in this training. This blog will serve as a site to continue the Oregon dialog around community development and offer local access to state specialists in this area.

Basic Introduction to Community – Original material presented by Steve Jeanetta, University of Missouri Extension

Brief Overview – Establishing a common ground

This session focused on establishing a common set of definitions, principles and goals. Practitioners should think of community development as the planned and organized process through which people and communities learn how they can help themselves. Within this definition is a potential point of conflict for Extension agents and others who are trying to do work in this area: do you understand the community, its diversity, and values well enough to effectively engage? One of the most critical elements of community development is that it is a process that empowers the community, builds capacity locally, and serves local needs and interests.

People have modeled many different ways of implementing community development – from a simple linear process to more complicated views of the world. What is most critical is that the effort to discuss the future of a community or talk about a particular issue be inclusive, equally accessible, and focus on respecting the comments of all participants.

Key Points       

• Community Development has a rich history as a practice for enacting change in communities.
• This approach to addressing community needs to be an inclusive process that empowers all local residents’ ideas and involvement.
• Community Development is a long-term strategy, there is no “right” way to enact change but the process takes time, consensus building among participants, and the community’s consideration of alternatives.
• Practitioners need to respect the community’s current state: their interest to work together and their history of creating dialog around a common future. Building these characteristics need to come first.

Translating these concepts into practice

• Community development is not always focused on a single community. Some issues that arise in a community are better addressed by the people interested in that issue from several communities.
• Increase the diversity of voices in the community’s decision-making processes.
  • Hold meetings in Spanish
  • Engage with the Ford Leaders in your community as a way to spread the word about community meetings
  • Contract with Rural Development Initiatives (RDI) to facilitate contentious discussions in the community
• Establish guidelines for participating. Americans have seen plenty of bad examples of how to take part in public conversations – especially in the last few years. The community development process must create a respectful space to talk about problems, and the opportunities and costs of proposed solutions.
  • Define accepted and unacceptable behaviors as a group
  • Enforce these behaviors – a moderate should step in and remind the group of the established guidelines
  • Take a break if the conversation gets too heated or ask to speak with a participant who is struggling to follow these guidelines privately
  • Ask participants to write down their thoughts first and then share their ideas one at a time

Next week we will be discussing some of the data communities can use during their conversations.