Better+Together+Synopsis

=**What are the most important lessons an established nonprofit can take from this book? (to be filled in in class)**=
 * relational organizing
 * bending over backward to get new people involved
 * power of small group meetings and interacrions
 * don't judge a book by its cover
 * verbal/physical (dance) expressions of emotions toward an issue
 * consistancy of group meetings/group members
 * storytelling - understand each other on a more real level
 * utilizing grants and foundations
 * neighborhood associations work together
 * equal representation through diversity in community (board member, advertisements, meetings)
 * speaking to people "in their own language
 * age does not matter
 * small groups are important
 * activism leads to more activism
 * receptive government to citizen initiatives

**Chapter 1: The most dangerous thing we can do is talk to our neighbors**
student making report: Mary Jo Draper
 * What was the situation that called for community engagement?**
 * At the Palmer Elementary School in Pharr, Texas, many of the students came from "colonias," or unincorporated areas of Mexican or Mexican-American immigrants. The residents of these colonias live below the poverty line, with few services and little contact with established organizations, and little faith in their ability to solve their own problems. When the Industrial Areas Foundation came into town, its organizers began to hold one on one conversations with working-class Mexican Americans, and found there were few organizations that connected them to political power or public participation. The teachers and administrators began working with the Valley Interfaith coalition of church and school groups to try to improve the school. The parents did not have any connect to the schools and many had limited proficiency in English. The parents felt powerless and unengaged.


 * What community engagement technique or techniques was used?**
 * **Relational organizing:**one on one conversations and house meetings aimed at building relationships. The goal of these meetings is to have a conversation. The agenda for organization is built from these conversations. In fact, the organizers from the Industrial Areas Foundation, which has its roots in Alinsky's organization, have a rule, "Never do anything for anyone that they could do for themselves." Organizers are taught to stay in the background rather than taking the lead in solving problems for people.
 * **Meeting with parents in their homes**: Organizers went to the parents' homes to ask them about their hopes and worries about the school and their children. For many parents' it was the first time anyone had ever asked their opinions.
 * **House meetings**: Participants break into small groups of 6-10 to discuss their concerns and listen to stories from other parents.
 * **Accountability sessions**: IAF invites politicians to meeting, gives them 1-2 minutes to tell voters whether they approve of the IAF agenda.
 * What was the outcome?**
 * The organizers and parents held an accountability session, inviting candidates for major political offices to ask them to make a commitment to a living wage, health care and investment in infrastructure. The residents of the colonias said they were there because one-quarter of their homes did not have water or sewer services. Valley Interfaith gathered 75,000 names on a petition, which was one reason several important politicians showed up. Two thousand people attended the meeting. One hundred percent of the public officials who attended the meeting made a commitment to the VAlley Interfaith agenda.
 * What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?**
 * When people have not been engaged before, we may need to bend over backwards to get them involved; for example, visiting them in their homes.
 * People may need to tell their stories in order to get past anger and be able to work on solutions.
 * Storytelling engages people more than abstract ideas.
 * Meetings need to be face to afce to be powerful.
 * Bringing together people across race and religion is one of the biggest challenges in community organizing.
 * Residents can achieve real political power by coming together as a community.

**Chapter 2: (Title of chapter)**
student making report: (name) What was the situation that called for community engagement? What community engagement technique or techniques was used? What was the outcome? What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?

**Chapter 3: The Shipyard Project**
Portsmouth, New Hampshire was once a town where many people use to come and visit. During World War II on one side of the river there was a shipyard that built submarines, but when the war was over they stopped and even though people still worked at the shipyard others didn’t exactly know why. Now on the other side of the river there is an upbeat town that has restaurants, bookstores, theaters and shops. Many people in the town did not like the shipyard mostly because they did not like the idea of submarines designed to carry weapons of mass destruction. A woman named Christine Dwyer thought of an idea to do an art project about the shipyard to bring the two communities together.
 * student making report:** Katherine Connely
 * What was the situation that called for community engagement?**

I think that the technique that was used was that it was a grassroots project. They ended up doing a weeklong series of dances put on by the actual works of the shipyard. The dances throughout the week included the history of the shipyard and personal stories, battleground and common ground, environmental issues and the Thresher disaster.
 * What community engagement technique or techniques was used?**

These dances helped the communities understand one another. The Shipyard Project has brought together people from different parts of the community. Some of them continue to attend one another’s events and some have come to discover that they care more about the arts than they thought they ever did. Don’t judge a book by its cover. When the shipyard made submarines for war back in the day that doesn’t mean they still do. People judged the workers because they worked at the factory.
 * What was the outcome?**
 * What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?**

**Chapter 4: The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative**
student making report: Rebecca Hinman What was the situation that called for community engagement? What community engagement technique or techniques was used? What was the outcome? What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?
 * In Roxbury, a residential district of Boston, Massachussets, is the Dudley Street neighborhood. This neighborhood is ravaged by abandoned lots and cars, litter, and arson. Cars were stolen and there was no sense of unity between the neighbors.Banks had red-lined the area not giving out loans and refusing mortgages. Even if you did manage to start up a business on your own, it was hard to draw customers because of the perception of the community and the area looked so run down. There was low income, crime, poverty, poor educational systems, and vacant lots. This neighborhood was in trouble and no one seemed to care about it.
 * Utilizing grants/foundations
 * The revitalization of the neighborhood came about because a social service agency asked that the Riley Foundation give their organization money for the tattered carpet in the office. The trustees of Riley denied the funding, but then drove into the neighborhood and saw that the community needed much more than new carpet. Riley decided to focus its funding on the Dudley Street neighborhood and finance much, much more than new carpet.
 * Neighborhood Associations
 * When Riley realized something needed to be done, they organized the Dudley Advisory Group. DAG was comprised of Riley trustees and social services agency leaders. They then came up with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative which would be an organization dedicated to addressing neighborhood problems. Originally, DSNI consisted of the DAG. After DSNI presented their plan to the community, the community voiced an outrage that DSNI would not be comprised of the community members. DSNI graciously accepted their criticism, scraped their plan, and handed the reigns to the community. DSNI then went on to dramatically improve their community
 * Inclusiveness and Resident Representation
 * DSNI was comprised of many of the residents of the community and they payed speical attention to include every ethnicity present. They had a certain number of representatives from the African-American, Latino, Cape Verdean, and White communities which were the four largest ethnic representations. The advertisements and meetings represented all of the languages that the community spoke.
 * Careful Selection of Issues addressed
 * Each of the different cultural identities saw different needs for the community. They only choose projects that each member of DSNI and the larger community saw as important. They choose neutral imporovement topics such as their "Don't Dump On Us" initiative to clean up the neighborhood, "Take a Stand Own the Land" initiative to encourage residents to acquire land and create affordable housing, and the "Food Project" initiative to create an urban garden for their community.
 * The outcome was astonishing. The community's change was visible.The trash was picked up, businesses were better, education was better, crime went down, people knew and loved one another. One of their proudest accomplishments was the completed community center that took 6 years to put together. The neighborhood still faces issues, but now have a way to address them.
 * Not to assume that people don't care of their community.
 * Once the neighborhood was asked if they wanted to improve it, they made the effort to make it a better place to live.
 * Give people the power.
 * Giving the residents control of their efforts gave them leadership and ownership of their outcome.
 * Inclusiveness is key.
 * DNSI worked because everyone felt like they were a part of the process and that their opinion mattered.
 * Money matters.
 * This was a very inspirational story, but the reality is that none of it would have happened had they not initially received funding dollars from a very wealthy foundation.

**Chapter 5: (Title of chapter)**
student making report: (name) What was the situation that called for community engagement? What community engagement technique or techniques was used? What was the outcome? What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?

**Chapter 6: (Title of chapter)**
student making report: (name) What was the situation that called for community engagement? What community engagement technique or techniques was used? What was the outcome?

**Chapter 7: Do Something: Letting Young People Lead**
student making report: Danny Duggan The overall concern for the call to community engagement is noted by the significant decrease in young people's involvement in civic participation. The examples of this are shown by the statistics in 1972 showing that 42% of young people voted whereas in 2000 only 28% of young people ages 18-24 voted. The more immediate description of community engagement regarding young people's involvement in society was through the schools of Waupun, Wisconsin. On November 2, 1999, 30 members of the 6th grade class met for a "Speak Out", earlier called a "Town Hall" to discuss projects that they could affect from their school into the community. These first local members for the "Do Something League" came up with three projects (which allowed for development of others later as well). The three projects were: field trip fund, new playground equipment and improved railroad lights by campus. The actor, Andrew Shue and his friend Michael Sanchez founded the Do Something League Nationally but each separate community has their own brance and folks in charge. The exclamation of Do Something is that it is youth leadership: letting the young members choose projects, create strategies for carrying them out, do the work and reflect on their accomplishments. In this, a couple examples techniques used for success are the following. The first example given in the chapter was the use of social capital to be successful. This specific technique was described on page 148 through the explanation of how Do Something came to Waupun, Wisconsin. Teri Dary through her success (winning teacher of the year) and her husband's connection it was brought there. With the success of this also came the start of Do Something on the high school level in 2003. 1993: Local chapters began; Local facilitators knew what the needs were, how their schools could be affected and they moved away from the national level deciding much of the decisions. In realizing that there were errors in their program when they first started I noticed characters working together to figure out a better plan of action for what would work for their intended goals of Do Something. With this they worked together to develop the new local form, school based, opposed to national. **What was the outcome?** Seeing as the goal for this organization is to "let young people lead" the outcomes are present by example of what the Waupun School Community did. The first notable outcome was the success in the students in the traffic light and sign excursion. The students attested to the fact that the government was not as easy to work with as they had been expecting but nonetheless they were still successful with their goal to make the intersection a safer place for student use and overall closeness of the school. "The kids learned that community action can be successful even when the outcome is not the one you sought." p 161 A second outcome was the success of the further goal of the bike path. A goal was to get a bike path close next to the school to avoid the busy traffic way and with years of work the task was finally started and completed. Another outcome was the success of involvement with students and larger authorities. The book states that: "continuous engagement" p 162.
 * What was the situation that called for community engagement?**
 * What community engagement technique or techniques was used?**

**Chapter 8:**
student making report: Maggie What was the situation that called for community engagement? workers at Harvard wanted some sort of community that could work together to make the workplace a better place to be! What community engagement technique or techniques was used? organizing, through relationship building What was the outcome? pay increase, and a community of coworkers that cares about each other! What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter? The situation at Harvard, was that the lab assistants were not getting any credit for their work and they were not getting paid as much as they should have been. It was mostly women working in the labs, so they weren’t really going to do anything about it. They decided to organize and through social capitol by talking to each other. Because this was the third time that people at Harvard had tried to organize, they had to be creative. But the organizers didn’t really realize how creative they were really being. They built themselves around relationships. The point of the union is that you have people to go to when you need help. When it came time for some real action, they requested a significant raise but they broke it down by position and if there is ever a situation with conflict, there is a problem solving team to work through the problem. “No matter how controversial things get, we always have to treat each other with kindness and respect.” (Guarnieri). Social capital in this situation is built through relationships. It’s alllll about the relationships. They didn’t rally around a conflict or a common enemy but rather they wanted to build relationships within the workplace and unite under a common desire to make working at Harvard a happier place to be.
 * The Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers “The Whole Social Thing” **

**Chapter 9:** Experience Corps: Bringing "Old Heads" to the Schools
student making report: Christina = = For years, Philadelphia’s public school system was struggling. These struggles were not limited only to low test scores, but also high dropout rates, and difficulty with reading and math. The need for some kind of assistance in the school systems was evident, but people were not sure where to begin building a community that would assist with these very needs. With up to 30 students per class, it was difficult to meet the needs of individual students who were struggling.

Elementary students needed someone who was patient with them through the learning process, challenge them to be the best that they can be, and who would be there and not give up on them. Retirees, also known as baby boomers, were beginning to settle down and get antsy with their time. Although, Foster Grandparents and Big Brothers Big sisters has only improved the community, often times, there is a nationwide assumption that seniors are not able to take care of themselves, let alone others, but throughout the capital campaign of Experience Corps, this was proven untrue.

Experience Corps was launched in 1996 in five cities in Philadelphia. From the beginning wanted to unite seniors and give them power. Experience Corps showed a need for a diverse group of senior participants that would be dedicated throughout the entire process. Experience Corps incorporates elements of social capital building to increase the impact of individual volunteers. E. C is overseen by Civic Ventures, which is a nonprofit organization “dedicated to transforming the aging of America into a source of individual and social renewal.” Through the creation of Experience Corps, they were hoping to reinvent the community!

Creating Experience Corps new was difficult because there were obviously no experienced returners to help recruit seniors to assist in the program. The American Association of Retired Persons, also known as the AARP, played a large role in the initial recruitment. They sent out a mailing to those in their database and it brought in a lot of seniors who would be willing to assist in the Experience Corps program. After establishing their name, they began providing leadership opportunities and bettering the community. The volunteers were asked to commit to working a consistent 15 hours per week to be eligible for monthly stipends. In the 15 hours each week, they would take the time to tutor the same kids in reading or math so that they may build trusting relationships. The program did not only bond the students and the Experience Corps volunteer, but the teacher and entire school became more of a community because of the consistent volunteer time, effort, and support that was poured into the children. More recently, the program has been asked to require a certain test score or improvement of grade after the help of a volunteer mentor, but this is not the goal of Experience Corps – they are striving to help the students learn through creating a connection. Experience Corps not only benefits the students, as their overall reading and test scores have improved, but the need for the seniors to feel needed has been satisfied through mentoring these students.

Well, for me… I had no idea this kind of thing even existed. The entire time I was reading this chapter all I could think of is how much my grandma would absolutely love participating in something like this. Incorporating generations to influence other generations is a brilliant idea and it is benefitting both groups of people. I think something we could easily take away from this non-profit is that when there is a need, there is always a solution and people are always willing to volunteer and help, it is just about taking the time to organize and structure things to make it happen.

**Chapter 10: (Title of chapter)**
student making report: (name) What was the situation that called for community engagement? What community engagement technique or techniques was used? What was the outcome? What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?

**Chapter 11: Craigslist.org: Is Virtual Community Real?**

 * student making report:** Brian Scheibner


 * What was the situation that called for community engagement?**
 * Craig Newmark saw a lot of people using the Internet to help each other out and he thought he could do that as well. At first he started using email messages to notify friends about technology events and art events that might interest them. As the list of email recipients grew, he replaced the email list with a Web site. Job and housing leads became the core content; new categories and discussion forums were added as participation expanded, growing out of the interests of the people who used the site. Craigslist was born.


 * What community engagement technique or techniques was used?**
 * I would say the technique used was grassroots organizing. Craig Newmark saw a need and he built Craigslist from the ground up to meet that need.


 * What was the outcome?**
 * The outcome was a website that is like the classified ads section of the newspaper that users can use for free. It's one stop shop for anything you can think of.


 * What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?**
 * The internet can be a useful tool for community engagement when used the right way. Craigslist is free and can be used for looking for jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, resumes, & discussion forums. The Internet has led to a whole new way for community engagement. It has opened doors that were closed before, such as allowing someone to buy/sell tickets to a sporting event or concert without having to go through a ticket broker. It allows them to avoid the "middleman".

**Chapter 12: Portland**
student making report: Morgan Boudreau What was the situation that called for community engagement?
 * There was no one situation that called for community engagement, rather there were decades of unusual participation in community engagement in Portland, Oregon. During the late 60's and early 70's Portland was relatively normal compared to the rest of the United States. Then within the next two decades, the numbers changed and Portland citizens became 3 or 4 times more likely to go to public meetings, become members of groups, write letters, and sign petitions than the rest of American cities. The Riverfront for People demonstration is given credit for sparking the amount of activism seen in Portland. Citizens wanted less highway and more access to the river They won the fight and a park was made in place of a highway. This gave way to growing activism as citizens were able to see the success they had as inspiration to become involved.

What community engagement technique or techniques was used?
 * Portland's citizens were active in neighborhood associations, communication among fellow activists (newspaper and face-to-face), and were involved in civic organizations

What was the outcome?
 * From there, changes such as younger government leaders embedded activism into how the government worked. They were more responsive and inclusive to activism. They did not see community engagement as a threat or challenge to the government.
 * Portland's reputation as a good place to live attracted more activists to the area as they heard of their successes. When more activists moved to the area, they worked to preserve and improve what had drawn them to the city initially.
 * Strong community ties were made in Portland as activism was seen as a social norm. More people were involved in neighborhood associations.

What lessons about community engagement could we take from this chapter?
 * Portland's success is credited to a number of factors. Those being: 1) the proximity of the small city 2) the communication amongst activists 3) their involvement in neighborhood associations and civic organizations. However, the largest influencing factor of Portland's success is that people are involved because it's what people //do// in Portland. Because those around them actively participate, others are inspired to do the same. The lesson that can be taken from this is that we all can inspire those around us to be involved if we keep people informed about what is going on with good communication.