A national leader in the field of civic participation and community change, Everyday Democracy helps people of different backgrounds and views talk and work together to solve problems and create communities that work for everyone. Using innovative, participatory approaches, Everyday Democracy works with neighborhoods, cities and towns, regions, and states. It also runs the The [...]

IssueLab archives, distributes, and promotes the research produced by nonprofits. It archives hard-to-find research from small community-based organizations as well as large think tanks. Here are some research papers in its Community Development selection.
Demonstrating Our Values, Impact and Effectiveness: Final Report of the NeighborWorks Community Organizing Pilot Program. Contributing Organization(s): Neighborworks America
Intersection: Taking it to [...]

The process planner helps you choose participatory methods that are suitable to your situation. It also helps you plan your process. You answer a series of questions which are compared to a database of methods to determine which methods best fit your needs.
The process planner will suggest a list of methods. It is often a [...]

Community empowerment is about motivated people actively engaged in making a difference to the places they know best. Residents need to know how they can get involved, and councils need to know how to help them do so. These methods and tools should help make engagement easier.

Questions to ask before you begin
Planning how you will [...]

Excerpted from the Community Development section of CDX’s 74-page Resource Briefing (Word doc), to include only those publications that are available online for free. The Community Development Exchange is a membership-led organization which aims to bring about social justice and equality by using and promoting the values and approaches of community development. More free [...]

[ The resources linked below are those referenced in the book, p179ff ]
Easy Steps

Sponsor community dinners.

Slow Food
Community meals

Establish a community newsletter, bulletin board, and community roster.
Establish a neighborhood watch program.

National Sheriffs’ Association Neighborhood Watch Program

Start neighborhood investment clubs, community sports [...]

The goal of the Knight Foundation-Gallup Soul of the Community project is to explore how community qualities influence residents’ feelings about where they live, and how those perceptions relate to local economic growth and vitality.
Gallup interviewed a group of randomly selected adults age 18 or older, currently residing in each of the 26 Knight Foundation [...]

The Center for Advances in Public Engagement (CAPE), the academic arm of the public engagement group of Public Agenda, is at the forefront of efforts to research, develop and disseminate new insights and best practices that help improve the quality of American public life by building the field of public engagement and citizen-centered politics.
CAPE has [...]

The Greater Good Science Center is an interdisciplinary research center devoted to the scientific understanding of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behavior. While serving the traditional tasks of a UC Berkeley research center—fostering groundbreaking scientific discoveries—the GGSC is unique in its commitment to helping people apply scientific research to their lives.

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In Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play, Psychology Today columnist Peter Gray asked his readers to help him develop a proposal to build a neighborhood play and learning center “that could serve as a model that communities everywhere might emulate”. I said I’d help, and after putting in a few hours, recommended that he check out [...]