Convening & Facilitation Services

Convening:  A Community Collaborative Process

We work to ensure the integrity of our convening's by attempting to have every voice of a particular community represented. We accomplish this with each group that we convene through interviews with stakeholders, informal visits to the community, and advance preparation that includes research and pertinent assessments as needed. We seek to establish a collaborative framework through which we can engage communities to further dialogue that supports community learning.

Engaging Community by Way of System and Process:

As New Mexico's only Network Intermediary Organization (NIO), it is imperative that we utilize systems, processes and tools that are participatory, culturally relevant, place-based, system/process focused, comprehensive, and through local partnerships.  As a statewide infrastructural support we work through seven strategic domains that facilitate the building of capacity among our community partners.  The process engages communities in helping them rediscover and redefine their assets.  They can then link to other organizations' gifts, skills, and talents such that it begins to build a foundation to enhance community-strengthening efforts.

The Voice of the Community System™

When participants from diverse parts of society, community, or neighborhood are brought together to establish new patterns of working together, the mutually beneficial outcomes represent a type of societal learning.

Our communities face challenges for which there are no simple solutions. The ability to connect personal and corporate thinking processes in a shrinking, changing world is a pre-condition to finding solutions to problems that require the application of innovative approaches to persistent problems.

The Voice of the Community System™ introduces a systemic approach to capturing and integrating the thinking of diverse groups of people in order to find common solutions to complex opportunities. This “tool” is designed to support the work of individuals and organizations that are engaged in facilitating and leading broad-based local efforts to reduce violence, address inequities, support youth development, build strong core community values, and strengthen vulnerable and underserved communities.

Our Approach

The failures of most community initiatives find their root cause in focusing efforts and energy in wrong directions while ignoring the factors that ultimately affect community buy-in, ownership and overall satisfaction. While there is no silver bullet that can or should be used in all situations to mitigate community development challenges or even failures, one thing is clear; whether a funder-driven initiative, or the implementation of a Community Based Organization (CBO) program; understanding who a constituency is, what their real needs are, and capturing their voice, will inform any institutional, community or neighborhood strengthening agenda.

Elements of the Voice of the Community System™

Historically, vulnerable communities have been objectified and legislated to rather than being seen in organic and human terms, with a will of its own.

1. During the planning step we develop a broad and deep understanding of the community. The primary goals of the planning phase are:

• To understand the complexity of the communities’ voice
• To recognize and appreciate the significance of the different types of community
• To introduce the concept of community segmentation • To introduce the VOC system

2. Gathering community voice is more than simply handing out surveys, convening focus groups, or doing longitudinal studies. Design for cultural sensitivity is crucial in the gathering process if integrity is an important element in gathering the voice of the community, particularly in multi-cultural contexts.

During the “gathering” step, participants interactively think through the design and form by identifying important considerations of gathering data from communities, including: understanding the scope of the data collection, resources and constraints, implications of gathering language data, and selection of the proper methods to capture the voice of the community.

3. Synthesizing data can no longer be confined to the work of third party analysts or researchers.

The synthesis step uses participatory research principles to foster participation, learning and empowerment among local stakeholders to inform implementation processes, form strategic directions, and develop metrics for formative and summative evaluation. The analysis phase of the system attempts to establish “meaning” from the voice of the community. This step elicits the development of new skills that allow participants to determine the appropriate tools for gathering, analyze and learn from the data collected, and draw conclusions.

4. Community members do not measure effective implementation of an initiative by how much data has been gathered, but rather by how effective the deployment or implementation process is. The implementation is the most critical in terms of public scrutiny. Whether a local program, or state-wide initiative, the community’s voice is integral to decision-making and implementation cannot be overstated. Participants formulate focus issues, problem/opportunity statements, develop community-driven measures with which to measure progress, and identify “process owners” among stakeholders. Developing strategy requires an understanding of who is impacted by the opportunity, who impacts the opportunity, where community knowledge exists.

5. In all communities, timely, frequent, and appropriate communication is essential to delivering wants and needs. During the communication step, participants focus on the following issues:

• Who is the audience?
• Which organization is responsible for communications?
• What communication methods are employed?

Language, culture, and geographic concerns are addressed during this phase. Participants develop a communications plans that are sensitive to the audience, and that translates into a meaningful, understandable message.

All five steps of the Voice of the Community System™ are covered in a systematic way such that each element is built upon prior knowledge, ensuring that the integrity of the system remains intact.

Some of the products of this process (click on a link to download):

The information contained on this website cannot be reproduced, redistributed or otherwise copied without the expressed written consent of the New Mexico Forum for Youth in Community.  In addition, the sample documents listed herein may not be redistributed under any circumstances.

---

For more information please contact:

Everette W. Hill, M.A., Executive Director
everette@nmforumforyouth.org
(505) 821-3574, ext. 101
(505) 242-2776 (FAX)