Organizer’s Workbook and other resources from GINI

This easy-to-use and visually attractive guide, from the Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center, is a roadmap to discovering, organizing and engaging your neighborhood. It takes you through the steps of community building – from identifying assets to running effective meetings – and uses real-life case studies and plenty of hands-on activities.

You can download the complete workbook (pdf, 102 pages), or download specific sections:

1. Asset-Based Community Development
2. Community Organizing
3. Developing an Organizer Work Plan
4. Leadership and Group Dynamics
5. Engagement
6. Collaboration
7. Taking Action to Get Results
8. Neighborhood Meetings
9. Evaluation
10. Quality of Life Planning
11. References & Resources

Established in 1994 as a private, not-for-profit organization, INRC provides support and resources to neighborhood-based organizations to strengthen, develop and empower neighborhoods. This workbook is the third in a series of guides produced by the Great Indy Neighborhoods Initiative (GINI).

Where the lessons of this workbook end (“though engagement is an ongoing process”), the planning guide picks up. How to Create a Great Indy Neighborhood (pdf, 24 pages) is a simple, step-by-step guide to creating and implementing a quality-of-life plan in your neighborhood.

Third in the GINI series is the Neighborhood Resource Guide. This guide is designed to help Indianapolis neighborhood residents and organizations find resources and partners to help bring about comprehensive neighborhood development.

GINI is an approach to community development activities that promotes neighborhood-driven improvements. It assumes that residents know best what their immediate community needs. By giving them the support needed to assume more direct control over the face of their neighborhoods, and by following up with implementation assistance, Great Indy Neighborhoods helps “realize neighbor-driven dreams and build a neighbor-driven structure that will result in a greater feeling of community and a shared responsibility to maintain and build on community improvements.”

We found these resources through Profiles of Successful Dialogue-to-Change Programs Strengthening Neighborhoods, an article published by Everyday Democracy. Thanks @EvDem!