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Learning As We Go: How Emergent Process Supports Sustainable Community And Philanthropic Change, Elizabeth Myrick, Rachel Mosher-Williams, Laurie Zierer

The Foundation Review

Beginning in 2014, PA Humanities, one of 56 state and territorial humanities councils across the country, drew upon the work of Orton Family Foundation to deploy the Community Heart & Soul method, which centers community planning and civic engagement around connecting people to each other, and to the many assets of the places they live, through individual storytelling and collective narrative building.

Between 2015 and 2018, PA Humanities awarded matching grants to three locations in Pennsylvania — Greater Carlisle, Meadville, and Williamsport — to pilot PA Heart & Soul, a humanities-based, resident-driven community planning process that cultivates a shared sense …

Improving Impact: Collaborative Multi-Party, Multi-Sector Engagement (2011), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Most people do not realize the full implications of the fact that we live now in an era marked more by networks than hierarchies. Nowadays, power is distributed across boundaries and borders, rather than concentrated in one place—be it a physical setting, demographic group, industrial sector, or professional discipline. Thanks to systems thinking and the ubiquity of digital tools and platforms, there are many more opportunities for lawmakers, policymakers, and economic institutions to collaborate with concerned citizens on critical public issues, thereby breaking the grip of lobbyists, third-party intermediaries, and the power elite. On top of that are recent breakthroughs …

Using Civic Engagement And Collaboration To Create Community Change: Lessons From Charlotte, N.C., Joanne G. Carman, Rebecca A. Hefner

The Foundation Review

· The city of Charlotte, N.C. undertook a deliberative democracy process using the AmericaSpeaks “21st Century Town Meeting” process.

· The University of North Carolina-Charlotte performed a retrospective, process evaluation of the initiative examining the initiative’s components, coverage, participant feedback, short-term outcomes, and lessons learned.

· Early planning and implementation was done by volunteers, which ultimately was not sustainable. A new center, housed within an existing organization, was created to implement the recommendations.

· The initiative achieved a number of early successes, such as increasing the number of school nurses, expansion of an early childhood development program and an increase …

Lessons In Building A Better Community, One Voice At A Time, Erica Wood

The Foundation Review

· By 2035 there will be an estimated 1.2 million new jobs and 900,000 new households in the San Francisco Bay Area (Association of Bay Area Governments, n.d.); without planning and management, this population increase will result in rising air pollution levels, climate change, escalating cost of living, increasing traffic, and less green space.

· Silicon Valley Community Foundation partnered with area nonprofits and government agencies on a two-year initiative, Envision Bay Area, to engage residents and community leaders in conversations about growth.

· At a series of 10 public forums more than 800 participants came together, including those who …