Here's a bright idea: if you want to improve the local environment, go door to door in the neighborhood with a bunch of free CFL lightbulbs and ask neighbors if you can switch out their incandescent porch lightbulbs. And while you're there talking to them, ask them what environmental issues they care about and would like to work on. And better yet, sign them up to help before you leave.

That's just one example of how Ground Work Denver manages to accomplish so community building, stakeholder engagement, social justice, and community organizing - and that's on top of environmental wins.

Here's another bright idea: if you want to help support local leaders who want to work on environmental issues, give them a platform where they can connect with local residents who might also support their projects, through time, money, and other creative offers of assistance. And while you're setting up that platform, make it easy for environmental leaders to see that there are similar projects nearby, and to connect with the leaders of those projects, so that everybody's not reinventing the wheel.

That's how ioby has managed to help bring more than $260,000 to over 125 local environmental projects in New York City - and now across the country - in addition to volunteer hours, new connections, media attention, and valuable training and job skills.

Sensing a connection here? We are, and our speakers on last week's Green Up: Local Environmental Action call sure did. It's all about connections... between residents, between organizers, between supporters, between organizations, and on and on and on. And you bet it starts at the neighborhood level.

Whether you think of yourself as an environmental champion or not, listen in to last week's conference call or get the call notes. We guarantee you'll learn something from Brandon Whitney of ioby and Wendy Hawthorne of Ground Work Denver - two outstanding community organizers and environmental champions, all at the same time.

CM_Green_Up_Call_Recording_05-10-2012.mp3

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CM_Green_Up_Call_Recording_05-10-2012.mp3 (24.17 MB)

Join us for a free conference call Thursday, May 10 from 4-5 pm Eastern on the power of local environmental action, featuring Brandon Whitney of ioby and Wendy Hawthorne of Groundwork Denver. Register here.

Everyone from major environmental NGOs to local school and scout groups are recognizing the increasing potential to address major environmental issues at the local level - and the potential for that very act to build community.

It's about clean water and clean air and abundant wildlife - but it's also about jobs, and safe places for kids to play, about building local leadership and connections among neighbors.

There are dozens of organizations and initiatives all over the world waking up to the fact that environmental progress starts at home, and that you can't separate environmental issues from so many of the other challenges and opportunities in our neighborhoods and communities.

In honor of Earth Day, we're thrilled to feature two of our favorite organizations working in this arena. We hope you'll join them on a conference call next week to hear more about how they are helping local residents to tackle big environmental issues.

ioby

We all want to do something good for the earth, and we all want to make our neighborhoods better places to live and grow. ioby (rhymes with Nairobi, stands for "in our backyards") is an online fundraising tool for environmental leaders. ioby uses the power of online crowd-funding and digital engagement to achieve the global goals for environmental change, block by block.

Anyone with a good idea for an environmental project in his or her neighborhood can put their project up on ioby , start raising money, connecting with local volunteers and sharing new innovations in a likeminded community. Whether you have a vision for an urban farm, a cleaner streambed, safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists, better habitat for critters or energy efficiency in affordable housing, if your project is environmental and good for the community, it’s an ioby project.

For the last two years, more than 130 projects in NYC have been fully funded using ioby.org. Now, after a successful NYC pilot, ioby is branching out from their backyards and will be supporting any environmental project from across the country. Whether you want to raise $300 or $30,000, for a new farm market, a safer bike lane, a play street or a stream restoration, it makes no matter. ioby can help you have a successful fundraising campaign and build support on major social media channels. Check out ioby.org/idea to get started. 

Groundwork Denver

Groundwork Denver's tagline is "Community Action. Environmental Results." But you could just as easily flip that; their projects also involve environmental action, and they sure build community results.

"Groundwork Denver builds partnerships to deliver programs and resources that help lower-income communities to not only make a wide range of environmental improvements, but also to build diverse community involvement, and develop leadership and job skills."

This innovative non-profit uses a mix of community organizing and social techniques, including storytelling, arts, partnership building, and citizen engagement to tackle traditional environmental issues in the neighborhoods and cultural groups that are most often neglected by traditional environmental groups.

From Brownfields remediation to home energy audits, eliminating lead poisoning to community planning, Groundwork Denver finds issues that transcend politics, culture, and race and bring people together in the process. 

Join us!

Pick up the phone next Thursday, May 10, from 4-5 PM Eastern, for a conference call on local environmental action. Register here.

And mark your calendar for May 24 and a special webinar with Brandon Whitney on Online Fundraising for Local Action.

In West Duluth, when you build a school, you build a park too. And then run them together. Pretty smart, huh? But how many communities think of that, never mind put the pieces in place?

On last week's Stewarding Success conference call, Lee Stuart of Duluth LISC filled us in on this great idea and important success story. But it wasn't easy. Years of work turned into a pilot project to redevelop one school in conjunction with a park, with a local nonprofit tapped to help with operations. and now that pilot has become the SPARKS program (Schools + Parks) and a model for how Duluth will develop schools and parks in the future.

The idea arose, and it worked, because West Duluth has taken the time to build relationships, get organizations and people talking to each other, and create a framework for true collaboration. That story encapsulates the new way of doing business in West Duluth: a collaborative, integrated way that results from years of community organizing, partnership-building, networking, evaluation, and plain old hard work. And that story also captures the way that real stewardship works in the most successful communities across the country, according to new research by Steven Ames.

Communities everywhere are doing great work in planning, citizen engagement, and a whole range of issues. But it's tougher to sustain that engagement, implement the recommendations, and make change stick. For the communities that do make it work, change isn't always what you'd think. It's not just great action plans and hard-line project managers; it's creative projects like schools + parks; it's creating a brand and getting that brand everywhere; it's pausing to celebrate; it's setting egos aside.

If you're wrestling with how to improve your community for the long haul (and who isn't?), then listen in to the Podcast and get the notes from last week's call, and don't miss Steven's research, chock full of inspiring examples and actionable strategies to turn your town's ideas into long-term change.

CM_Stewardship_Call_Recording_04-12-2012.mp3

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CM_Stewardship_Call_Recording_04-12-2012.mp3 (27.76 MB)

And if you're really wrestling with this in your town or your professional life, we invite you to join us for a Project Peer Group call on April 26th, where you'll have the chance to tell your story, ask the questions you need help with, and share your thoughts with people who need help on their own projects. Sign up here.

Join us for a free conference call Thursday, April 12 from 4-5 pm Eastern to hear how you can help steward success in your town. Register here.

Your community rocks. You've been doing great work, engaging residents and building a vibrant, happening place. But what are you doing to ensure that all of your hard work doesn't go to waste?

We often let up when it comes to stewarding long-term success, but this can be the most vital part of the project.

While it's rare to find communities that have stewardship figured out, it's not unheard of. And a forthcoming research paper by Steven Ames unearths the lessons and stories of 5 towns and cities that have figured out how to weave success into the fabric of their communities.

(The paper won't be officially released until the end of the month, but click here for a sneak preview! and join us on the phone next week to hear more from Steven Ames.)

The West Duluth Neighborhood of Duluth, Minnesota is one of the all-star communities highlighted in this paper. Using the "Sustainable Communities" model developed by the national Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), West Duluth developed a broad-based "At Home in Duluth" partnership of more than 26 organizations, and created a neighborhood revitalization plan that worked to rebuild the local economy, sense of community, and local pride while simultaneously addressing major social issues like poverty, housing, jobs and education. (Join us on the phone next week to hear from Lee Stuart of Duluth LISC, one of the key organizers of this project.)

The most surprising thing about the case studies chosen for this research is how distinct they are, proving that there is no single formula. Successful stewardship initiatives can also look like:

• Covington and Oxford, Georgia ensuring that their "2050 Plan" for sustainable small-town growth is widely adopted and implemented, with buy-in from a diverse segment of community leaders
• Hillsboro, Oregon continuing to adapt, implement, and evaluate it's "2020 Vision and Action Plan," now more than a decade after it was passed, with the help of a broad-based "Hillsboro Implementation Committee"
• Portsmouth, New Hampshire changing the nature of dialogue, public engagement, and decision-making through its iterative "Portsmouth Listens" program
• Hastings, Michigan building a leadership development program and HomeTown Partnership, designed to spread out responsibility for community change and integrate efforts across the county

Equally surprising is the diverse range of tools, ideas, and strategies behind these communities' successes. Some are common-sense approaches that are widely adopted elsewhere, while others are unique strategies developed to fit local circumstances and needs. Steven's paper includes a helpful breakdown of 25 Top Approaches to Stewardship.

Here are a few of our faves:

• Local branding. Hillsboro's work includes a logo and crisp tagline that make Hillsboro 2020's efforts as distinct and recognizable as Mickey Mouse. (well, almost)
• Educating leaders. Many towns make the mistake of assuming that leaders know how to lead, and have all the information they need. Not Hastings, which has a specific program to educate leaders and provide them with the data and info to make sound decisions.
• Getting out. Covington and Oxford don't expect the people to come to them. They go out to the people with a traveling road show of fun, food and facts.
• Providing info & assistance. West Duluth makes a point of trying to provide practical assistance, like help with tax preparation. They find that once citizens have their basic needs met, they're much more likely to step up and get involved.
• Encouraging leaders to communicate. Government-citizen communication is often relegated to annual reports and council meetings at city hall. Not so in Portsmouth, where government leaders regularly meet with citizens for small group dialogues.

If you were hoping for a silver-bullet solution to stewarding success... Sorry! This is one topic that needs a carefully crafted local solution. But the good news is that there's a whole range of approaches and examples that can be tweaked and applied to communities everywhere.

Be sure to join us next Thursday, April 12, from 4-5 PM Eastern for a presentation on this research from Steven Ames, and a discussion about stewardship including Lee Stuart of West Duluth. Register here.

And if you want to boost your town's stewardship program, mark your calendar for April 26 and join us for a peer group call to connect with others and get help on your project.

Why use the arts for community engagement?

"Art opens the door just enough so that people can envision something different."

That's one answer, from one of the participants on last week's experimental Arts for Engagement Project Peer Group Call. In her community, artists started occupying vacant storefronts on Main Street and using them as studios, which "made the streets come alive" and brought life back to a struggling downtown. Now 10 years later, this city has a vibrant arts community and a bustling downtown - with storefronts rented out and thriving.

We held our third experimental Project Peer Group call last week... a great group of people discussing how they are using the arts (loosely defined) to engage community members, revitalize their downtowns, and more.

If you missed it and want to catch up our tap in going forward, read on...

Arts for Engagement Project Peer Group

When: March 29, 2012

What: Ideas for using the arts and other creative approaches to solve community problems. Practical challenges group members are facing, from dealing with absentee landowners to fundraising for arts projects, engaging youth and volunteers to building strong partnerships. 

Now what: This group will start a Google group (membership by request) to share success stories and bounce ideas around, and hold occasional conference calls to report back on what they're doing and keep in touch.

Contact us if you'd like to join the Google Group or get on the list for upcoming calls.

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Arts_Project_Call_Recording_03-29-2012.mp3 (34.4 MB)

Image: Flickr user Todd Mecklem

Community mural with senior citizens? Photography contest in schools? Getting the cops to write poetry?!

You want to do a community arts engagement project. But where do you even begin?

Last week's conference call with Barbara Schaffer Bacon of Animating Democracy (a program of Americans for the Arts) and Marty Pottenger, artist and Executive Director of Terra Moto Inc. and the renowned Art At Work project, gave us a few tips.

Barbara laid out a helpful framework, which is the basis for Animating Democracy's Arts & Civic Engagement toolkit. She recommends following three steps to planning your community project:

1. Imagine... think big, and imagine what your project could possibly be
2. Define... figure out who needs to be involved, then engage all the possible stakeholders
3. Design... now that everyone's in the room, figure it out together

(check out the toolkit for a series of worksheets to guide you through the whole process)

Sounds great, right? But does it really work?

If Marty's amazing work on the ground in Portland, ME and in other communities is any indication, then the answer is YES! Marty told us about Art At Work, a project that has engaged Portland's police in writing and reading poetry; public works employeees in creating wood cut prints; and the mayor in a theater production (among other things).

But it wasn't as simple as showing up at the police station with some pens and paper. Putting this project together - and any arts engagement project - is a delicate process of working with stakeholders to figure out which medium is right, establishing trust and partnerships, and understanding the issues and pitfalls involved.

Listen to the Podcast below or check out the call notes in Google docs to hear more about how Marty pulled off Police Poetry and other projects in Portland, Maine, and about a range of examples and tools from Barbara and the folks at Animating Democracy.

CM_Arts_Call_Recording_03-15-2012.mp3

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CM_Arts_Call_Recording_03-15-2012.mp3 (27.17 MB)

Join us for a free conference call Thursday, March 15 from 4-5 pm Eastern to hear how creative communities are using the arts to engage residents and create change. Register here.

 We've all seen youth poetry festivals and public murals, open studio tours and photography contests. Communities everywhere are celebrating and embracing the arts.

It's far less common for cities to use arts to inform dialogue, strengthen community, and plan for change. But it is happening - and the impacts extend far beyond the arts themselves.

If you're not convinced, or want an introduction to how the arts can be used for social and community change, there's no better place to start than Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts. The Ford Foundation funded a 1999 study of the arts and public dialogue. The resulting report, Animating Democracy, is one of the best articulations of why and how the arts can help to engage citizens and create change, and it was enough to launch an ongoing initiative.

Here's one quote to set the stage, but dig into the report if you want more.

“Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.”  W. E. B. Du Bois

The types of community art projects are as varied as the splotches in a Jackson Pollock, and limited only by the imagination. One of Animating Democracy's roles today is to identify, map, and connect those projects, communities and artists.

Co-Director Barbara Schaffer Bacon will be on the line with us next week to give an overview of some of the great work happening across the country. If you can't wait that long, pull up the Mapping Initiative on Animating Democracy's website for a new, curated database of community arts projects, artists, organizations, and community profiles.

And in the meantime, we thought we'd whet your appetite with a few of our favorite community arts initiatives.

• Art At Work is one of the least likely and most compelling examples we've heard about. Renowned artist Marty Pottenger set out to improve the municipal government of Portland, Maine by engaging city employees in making art. (As in getting police officers to write and share poetry, and creating a theater production with the mayor, local non-profit leaders, and recent immigrants. And it worked.) Join Marty on the phone next week to hear more about this project, and how it's not expanding to other cities across the country.
• Starksboro Art & Soul was a multi-phase community planning process in tiny Starksboro, VT. First, local college students criss-crossed the hills interviewing residents and capturing their stories. Then artist-in-residents Matthew Perry of the Vermont Arts Exchange rolled into town in his Art Bus. He met residents where they live and work, and helped them make t-shirts and community gardens, clean up mobile home parks and paint sap buckets, take pictures and capture what they love most about their town - and want to protect for the future.
• Transformazium is one of those rare gems that starts from nothing and helps a community rise from the ashes. At the height of the economic crisis, the city of Braddock, PA was making news as one of the worst-off communities in America, with rising crime, plummeting population, and nearly 90% of its housing stock literally in ruins. But it's since gained a reputation as a place of reinvention, in part thanks to ground-up citizen initiatives like Transformazium, which are reclaiming abandoned buildings, employing local residents, and giving people places to come together and recreate their city.
• Art in Storefronts is a clever initiative of the San Francisco Arts Commission, which simultaneously helped artists to showcase their work, brought life and energy to empty storefronts throughout the city, and helped to revitalize the local economy.

Now tell us about yours!

Be sure to join us next Thursday, March 15, from 4-5 PM Eastern for a conversation about Community Arts for Engagement. Register here.

And if you want to make art in your town, mark your calendar for March 29 and join us for a peer group call to connect with others and get help on your project.

If you're a CM junkie, you've heard the news that we're experimenting with new Peer Group Project calls this spring to help you connect to other people doing similar work.

Well, we've now held two. And they rocked. (if we do say so ourselves)

We won't bore you with all the original details... you can scroll back on the blog. But if you wanted to sit in on those peer groups and didn't get the chance, tap in and see what you missed.

Storytelling for Community Planning Peer Group

When: February 9, 2012

Who: Barbara Ganley, Betsy Rosenbluth, and a dozen local storytelling practitioners

What: How and why and when to start a storytelling project. Get the notes in Google Docs and listen in for a far-reaching conversation about everything from high-tech tools to community networking. Get the notes in Google docs.

Now what: This group wanted to start a Facebook group (membership by request) to trade ideas and hold quarterly conference calls on storytelling to help keep them on track with their work and learn particular skills. Contact us if you'd like to be involved going forward.

CM_Storytelling_Project_Call_Recording_02-16-2012.mp3

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CM_Storytelling_Project_Call_Recording_02-16-2012.mp3 (32.58 MB)

DIY Community, Tactical Urbanism & the Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper Approach Peer Group

When: February 16, 2012

Who: Mike Lydon, Phil Myrick, Aurash Khawarzad, and about 15 guerrilla placemakers

What: What kinds of DIY projects work in certain situations; how to measure success, plan a project, remake a highway, and engage residents - all without getting sued. Case studies from Shelburne, VT and Columbus, OH. Get the notes in Google docs.

Now what: No plans for an online group right now (there's already a great open Facebook group on Tactical Urbanism). This group wants to meet up for quarterly conference calls as well to dig into case studies and challenges in other communities. Contact us if you'd like to be involved going forward.

BONUS: Lucky day! Tactical Urbanism Vol. 2 is out from Mike Lydon and his collaborators. Be sure to check it out...

CM_DIY_Community_Project_Call_Recording_02-23-2012.mp3

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CM_DIY_Community_Project_Call_Recording_02-23-2012.mp3 (40.26 MB)

We love to try new things at CommunityMatters, and this year we're experimenting with our conference call program.

More than 1000 people have registered for conference calls since we launched the series in 2010, and we've had great conversations on everything from intergenerational communities to local foods. You've told us what works for you, what doesn't, and what would really help you create change in your communities.

Based on that feedback, we're experimenting in 2012. We'll keep hosting conference calls on the topics that matter to you and your towns. And then we'll follow up with a second call for people who are working on projects on the ground. Those follow-up calls will offer an opportunity for a smaller group to share what they're doing, ask questions, swap ideas and explore challenges, and build connections.

We'll ask each group whether and how they'd like to connect going forward (Facebook? ongoing calls? meet-ups in the Bahamas?) and we'll do our best to help set that up. But we can't tell you exactly where all of this will lead... that's up to you!

We've tested this out with two groups so far: in February we held Project Peer Group calls on Storytelling for Community Planning and DIY Community, which we'll report back out on in a blog post shortly. If you're working on those topics in your town and want to tap in, visit our new page at http://www.communitymatters.org/project-peer-groups.>

We hope you'll watch our schedule and join a group if it's a topic you're working on. And, as always, please tell us what you think.

From Maine to Calfornia, big city streets to rural enclaves, it's clear that you're wrestling with the same problem: You want to spruce up your communities. And you don't have a lot of resources to do it.

Here's the good news: that's ok. There are so many ideas out there these days for sprucing up communities, and a lot of them don't have to take much effort. Mike Lydon and Phil Myrick gave us dozens of examples and strategies on the phone last week. Here are just a few of our favorites:

• Start with the Petunias. Literally. There are very few streets or corners that couldn't be improved by a single flowerpot. This advice from Phil has become a catch phrase for the Project for Public Spaces and a key part of their Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper approach. After you're done with petunias, look for all kinds of tiny interventions like that, which you can go out and do right now with just the change in your pocket.
• Don't Commit. Mike says one of the most important aspects of tactical urbanism is that it is experimental and it can be temporary. The best way to find out what'll really work in your town is to be agile and just go try something. "Agility is about not having to commit too much time, too much money, too much political will, and having realistic expectations," Mike says. Try sticking a few chairs out in front of your town hall. Don't expect them to stay... but who knows? Maybe they will.
• Think Like A Local. You might read over these ideas and think "this'll never work in my town." And it might not. So think about what will... what cool assets do you have that a project could help to highlight? What does your town need? Figure that out, then design a project. Check out this great article on Guerilla Wayfinding in Raleigh, NC to see how a group of walkability activists designed some simple signs to help people walk to great places. (plus bonus ideas about yarn bombing, guerrilla gardening and more).

Now here's the challenge TO YOU. Those of you on the call last week wanted details... how much it cost, how much time it took, and how people got it done. Several of you typed questions into our call notes last week, hungry for the exact recipes for change.

So give them to us! Tell us about any project like this that you've done in your community (or even heard about). Post a comment below, or email us at info (@) communitymatters (.) org, or type it straight into the notes for this call.  Keep it simple...tell us what it cost, where and when you did it, how much time or how many people it took, and anything else that's critical to know. We'll collect all of your answers in the notes and share them back out.

In the meantime, listen to last week's call Podcast below and check out the notes for more juicy details.

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CM_DIY_Community_Call_Recording_02-09-2012.mp3 (27.45 MB)

Image: Flickr creative commons / user jorgevr