Community Building
Overview
Community building is defined in Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building as "approaches to improve the well-being of people in a particular community or other geographically defined area. The term is also used within the housing and community development field to describe work on the non-physical aspects of community development (education, child care, family supports) as compared to the built environment or other physical aspects of development (such as housing). … Community building efforts also employ a range of change strategies (often referred to as “interventions”).They include strategies involving strengthening or building the capacity of organizations and individuals to promote certain kinds of community change. Other typical strategies or interventions involve changing how decisions are made in a community, how system resources are allocated or made available to community residents and how opportunities are made available to community residents to access resources such as employment, wealth, education and transportation. Some strategies use processes to change systems, resources or decision-making from within, including system collaboration or coalitions of public, private and non-profit organizations. Some focus on changes from without, including organizing or civic engagement tactics." Resources in this section include frameworks, lessons, and examples mostly on comprehensive community-building efforts.
Practices
- Community Building, Community Bridging Linking Neighborhood Improvement Initiatives and the New Regionalism in the San Francisco Bay Area
- End of One Way
- Signs of Promise: Stories of Philanthropic Leadership in Advancing Regional and Neighborhood Equity
- Tools for White Anti-Racist Organizing
Resources
- Community Development: A Guide For Grantmakers On Fostering Better Outcomes Through Good Process
- Core Issues In Comprehensive Community-Building Initiatives: Exploring Power And Race
- Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building
- Structural Racism and Community Building
- Voices From The Field III: Lessons and Challenges from Two Decades of Community
- Detroit: Black Problems, White Solutions
- Structuring Development for Greater Community Benefit
- Multi-Generational Movement Spaces Key Steps & Basic Concepts to Keep in Mind
- Organizing: People, Power, Change
