The Rationale
Sustained resident engagement and leadership can transform communities and improve outcomes for individuals, families and organizations.
This report presents insights the Casey Foundation gained after more than a decade of working with residents to achieve better results during Making Connections, the Foundation’s signature community change effort of the 2000s. The report discusses the value of resident engagement and leadership, provides examples of activities and lessons learned and demonstrates the impact those activities had — and can have — in communities.
Resident engagement usually needs some clarification — what it is, what it contributes, how to finance it and what has been learned about meaningful rather than symbolic engagement. Ultimately, prioritizing resident leadership is about shifting influence and power to the people, and unless that is recognized and honored, the encouragement of resident voice tends to be superficial and results in resident frustration when nothing really changes.