Excerpts from Chapter 1 of The Art of Community, by Jono Bacon. Note from the author: When I started work on The Art of Community I was really keen that it should be a body of work that all communities have access to. My passion behind the book was to provide a solid guide to [...]

Excerpts from Voices From the Field II: Reflections on Comprehensive Community Change, by Anne C. Kubisch, Patricia Auspos, Prudence Brown, Robert Chaskin, Karen Fulbright-Anderson, and Ralph Hamilton. Washington, D.C.: Aspen Institute.
In 1997, the Aspen Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives distilled early lessons and emerging conclusions from the practices of CCIs during their first years. Drawing [...]

Whether the nuisance is physical (such as blighted property) or behavioral (such as a drug house), the best solutions focus on the core elements that have allowed its continuing existence. This document identifies barriers to solving chronic nuisance problems, discusses ways that experienced leaders find solutions, and provides a set of references for pursuing specific [...]

This report presents the base from which the Casey Foundation has built its work on social networks. It compiles relevant definitions, key findings from the literature and their challenges, and Casey’s point of view on the potential niche for strengthening positive social networks in the context of the Foundation’s Making Connections initiative. This is the [...]

A theory of change can be a helpful tool for developing solutions to complex social problems. At its most basic, a theory of change explains how a group of early and intermediate accomplishments sets the stage for producing long-range results. A more complete theory of change articulates the assumptions about the process through which change [...]

The Resident Leadership and Facilitation Training is designed to help participants gain an understanding of the skills needed to lead successful meetings that result in decisions about actions that will achieve desired results.
via Resident Leadership and Facilitation Work Book. Annie E. Casey Foundation 2008

This is the product of a research project. Community Voices Heard: Changing People and Public Policy through Low-Income Organizing is a case study of grassroots organizing. Based on research directed by Ann Rivera of the New York University Center for Community Research & Action, and funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the piece [...]

Edited by Karen Fulbright-Anderson and Patricia Auspos. The Aspen Institute 2006.
A growing body of literature has begun to document encouraging lessons about interventions and factors that contribute to positive changes in communities. While the evidence base is, for the most part, neither strong nor robust enough to provide definitive answers to some of the most [...]

William J. Traynor, Jessica Andors . Shelterforce 2005.
Across the country there is a fundamental condition that consistently undercuts even the most successful community development efforts: chronic disengagement. In most cities, public or civic life is a hostile environment for the average person, ruled by cynicism and division, and dominated by entrenched habits of isolation and [...]