Building Coalitions for Community-Led Change

A new action guide offers prac­ti­cal strate­gies for coali­tions of com­mu­ni­ty groups to cre­ate col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ments that dri­ve mean­ing­ful change for chil­dren, youth and families.

Find­ing Uni­ty in Com­mu­ni­ty: How Build­ing Con­sen­sus Can Shift the Dynam­ics of Sup­port empha­sizes the pow­er of broad com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and shared deci­sion-mak­ing pow­er to improve the health and well-being of youth and fam­i­lies. The Edna Ben­nett Pierce Pre­ven­tion Research Cen­ter at Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty devel­oped the guide with sup­port from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and in con­cert with six com­mu­ni­ties imple­ment­ing the Foundation’s Evidence2Success™ framework.

Learn more about Evidence2Success

The guide is designed for coali­tions that bring togeth­er cross-sec­tor part­ners, including:

• non­prof­its;
• local busi­ness­es;
• edu­ca­tors;
• neigh­bor­hood associations;
• youth groups;
• faith orga­ni­za­tions;
• par­ent groups; and
• local gov­ern­ment agen­cies that serve chil­dren and youth.

Build­ing coali­tions is an effec­tive approach to address­ing issues that affect com­mu­ni­ties because they unite var­ied per­spec­tives and resources around a shared goal, increas­ing com­mu­ni­ty own­er­ship and the like­li­hood of last­ing change. Using this strat­e­gy can lead to sev­er­al ben­e­fits, includ­ing enhanc­ing com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment; fos­ter­ing inclu­sive, col­lab­o­ra­tive and pro­duc­tive envi­ron­ments for diverse stake­hold­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to engage; and increas­ing involve­ment in and own­er­ship of activities.

Find­ing Youth in Com­mu­ni­ty shares exam­ples from com­mu­ni­ties where coali­tion-dri­ven engage­ment led to con­crete results. Based on those cas­es, the guide makes sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions for coalitions:

• Under­stand the local con­text and that includ­ing key moti­va­tors and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers can encour­age participation.
• Include diverse per­spec­tives and engage youth, par­ents, res­i­dents, school staff, non­prof­it work­ers, busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives and others.
• Fos­ter a cul­ture of trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty that val­ues shar­ing per­son­al expe­ri­ences and encour­ages shared lead­er­ship.
• Rec­og­nize and address pow­er dynam­ics among dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty sectors.

“The find­ings high­light­ed in this guide lay out a long-need­ed roadmap and a ratio­nale for what those who are doing the work already know — that buy-in and coor­di­na­tion across orga­ni­za­tions, agen­cies and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are foun­da­tion­al for cre­at­ing sus­tain­able change,” said Amir François, senior research asso­ciate at Casey. ​“This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for youth and fam­i­lies in com­mu­ni­ties that have been his­tor­i­cal­ly marginalized.”

Find­ing Uni­ty in Com­mu­ni­ty is part of the Guid­ing Col­lec­tive Change series, based on the expe­ri­ences of com­mu­ni­ties imple­ment­ing Evidence2Success. Ear­li­er guides in the series include: How Youth Sur­veys Guide Col­lec­tive Com­mu­ni­ty Invest­ment and Plan­ning: Ben­e­fits of Using Youth Data and Tak­ing the Guess­work Out of Fund­ing Youth Pro­grams. Two more action guides are sched­uled for release lat­er this year.