The Spirit of Coalition: Lessons from the Field

in community engagement

From The Spirit of Coalition, by Bill Berkowitz and Tom Wolff © 2000 American Public Health Association. Dr. Berkowitz has been involved in creating, directing, and writing about community programs for over 35 years. His previous books, Community Impact, Community Dreams, and Local Heroes deal with the skills, ideas, and personal qualities involved in successful community development. Dr. Wolff is an internationally recognized expert in coalition building and community development, who consults to and trains coalition practitioners in diverse settings across the world. He is the author most recently of The Power of Collaborative Solutions.

Challenges to coalition building, and tested strategies to meet them

1. Engaging citizens

  • Learn about citizens groups and associations
  • Develop contacts and relationships with these groups
  • Keep on the lookout for potential new recruits
  • Make personal contacts with prospective citizen members
  • Suggest giving the coalition a try (a small commitment)
  • Provide an incentive (e.g., status, a small stipend, a name on a letterhead)
  • Offer a range of ways people can help

2. Building citizen participation

  • Hold meetings at convenient times and locations
  • Provide time for informal interaction
  • Let people share their goals, expectations, and feelings
  • Make sure citizens have an equal voice
  • Hire agency staff from within the community
  • Allow time for trust to develop

3. Giving up control

  • Solicit and encourage ideas and issues from everyone
  • Listen to and validate those ideas and issues
  • Provide specific procedures and clear ground rules
  • Believe in your own members’ abilities
  • Accept that mistakes may occur
  • Consider that disagreements may be healthy
  • Don’t feel you have to do everything

4. Giving up territory

  • Be aware of past history and past territorial issues
  • Openly acknowledge that territorial concerns may exist
  • Understand current territorial definitions
  • Respect members’ self-interests and their need to hold on to some “territory” of their own
  • Find ways to cooperate that don’t involve territory
  • Be gentle, persistent, and patient around these issues
  • Keep coalition members focused on the greater good

5. Taking meaningful action

  • Discuss and clarify the overall goals of the coalition
  • Create a coalition plan based on those goals
  • In the plan, include clear objectives with actions and timelines
  • Agree upon small, feasible, easily realized actions
  • Give members advance notice of decisions that need to be made (e.g., on coalition agendas)
  • Follow up on decisions made and actions needing to be taken
  • If needed, discuss in a meeting why decision making and action seem to be difficult

6. Exerting your leadership

  • Make sure your leadership represents the full coalition
  • Clarify work expectations together with coalition members
  • Make sure that taking some responsibility is part of the membership expectation
  • Find those members most willing to accept responsibility
  • Delegate responsibility, with agreed-upon limits
  • Follow up on responsibility delegated
  • Offer leadership training for prospective new leaders

7. Balancing your life

  • Find a balance that works for you personally
  • Review that balance from time to time
  • Set aside personal time and personal days for yourself
  • Lead a healthy lifestyle, making time for rest and vacations
  • Find some interests beyond the coalition
  • Find supportive people you can talk to when needed

8. Keeping the flame alive

  • Plan future directions together with coalition members
  • Move at a pace consistent with members needs
  • Groom a new leadership
  • Take on winnable activities, and develop a track record of success
  • Reward members for accomplishments
  • Build in some celebration and fun times for the coalition

9. Keeping the faith

Faith is found in many places. We can’t tell you how or where to find it. It is a personal matter. But we do know that faith in the coalition and in its success is essential – and we hope that you can find a way of maintaining and sustaining it for yourself.

A Community Manager: Becoming the Community

in community engagement

Excerpts from The Art of Community, by Jono Bacon.

Our function as community leaders is to enable people to be the best they can in the community that they have chosen to be a part of. Our job is to help our community members achieve their greatest ambitions, and to help them work with other community members to realize not only their own personal goals, but the goals of the community itself.

Trust Is Everything

At the heart of this enablement is trust. Trust is a critical component in gaining the support and confidence of your community members. When trust vanishes, words and promises lose their meaning. When trust is present, words and promises flourish in a world where they have purpose and potential.

Trust, though, is not something you can learn. You are either trusted or you are not. As my father-in-law said to my family one evening over dinner, “Live your life honestly—if you don’t, you always have to remember to not be yourself.” His words teach an important lesson: when trust is implicit in every step you take, you can always be confident in the transparency and openness of your actions. This is the most important aspect of community leadership, and of life itself.

Part of the reason why trust is so critical is that, as a community leader, you want to be emotionally close to everyone in your community. You want everyone in that community to think of you as an accessible, approachable, sensitive person, and trust is required for any of these roles. People will approach you for advice, for guidance, to discuss personal issues, to handle conflict, and more. Many of these situations will be complex, and will require a significant level of sensitivity and confidence.

The Value of Listening

Part of achieving that sense of trust and confidence is having a firm foundation of understanding and patience. You should be aware right now that some people are going to frustrate you. Some people will be too quick to act and opine on a subject, and some will be too timid and reluctant to put their hands up. Some people will obsess about the wrong things and regularly produce what appears to be a tempest in a teacup.

But then again, some people will inspire you with their sense of responsibility, their ability to react to situations with grace and elegance, and their willingness to care for the community. As a community leader you will experience all sides of human nature, from strength and innovation to weakness and uncertainty. Whatever you hear from your community, you should endeavor to be the best listener that you can.

When you can demonstrate trust and the capability to listen, your community will develop respect for you. They will be there to listen to you, work with you, to stand side-by-side with you in your battles and become a large extended family that you can rely on. This respect has an important function in reinforcing belief in your community. When community members have responsive positive interactions with community leaders, it makes the community feel more inclusive, which generates belief and, importantly, belonging. Respect is a wonderful gift, and you should cherish it and protect it at all costs. Getting that respect back after you lose it is a near-impossible task.

Avoid Ego, or Others Will Avoid You

Just as the right kind of inspiration can cause lasting effects, wrong decisions and approaches can cause lasting damage.

The biggest risk that can face any community leader is excessive ego. Unfortunately, ego is something that plagues a lot of people who assume a form of leadership. (more…)