The key things we learned by studying Chattanooga Venture
After a year of reflecting on Chattanooga Venture and related initiative, we have garnered some key insights about community engagement. There are simple, powerful reasons to engage people in identifying community issues and making decisions about how to address them:
- Better decision-making: Regardless of how capable or insightful a leader might be, there are much greater capabilities and clear, deeper insights among community members.
- Buy-in, support, and trust: People will buy into and support initiatives and projects they help create. Responding to their input builds trust.
- Collaboration: Shared vision is the basis for common metrics and joint approaches that are much more effective and useful than unilateral, “go it alone” plans.
- Empowerment: Engagement increases participants’ confidence, autonomy, agency, and access to resources, enabling them to act on their own behalf.
The key to genuine community engagement is to start by listening to community members without any agenda other than understanding their goals, issues, needs, opportunities, and resources. We have many wonderful assets and programs in our community focused on particular causes. Who is minding the gaps and synergies between them? That is what community engagement does: It builds on, strengthens, and supplements what is in place already to multiply impacts.
Applying what we have learned
Do these insights make sense to you? Let’s take them to the next level! The Chattanooga Venturing Study Group is shifting from learning on from the past to applying learning for the future. The goal is to build capabilities and infrastructure for genuine engagement by:
- Identifying spaces and providing tools,
- Reaching out to more people from other parts of the community to host and participate, and
- Reviving the Facilitator Bank established by Chattanooga Venture.
There is more to learn and much to do.
Solutions for our community are not going to come from corporations and governments. If we want to grow and prosper in an inclusive, sustainable manner, we need to continue developing and learning. Here’s how:
- Attend the next Chattanooga Venturing Dialogue on creating great places, Monday, June 1, 5:00 PM. Get more information and register online here.
- Host a future dialogue. Email me at greg@eduity.net for more information and a list of topics.
- Join the Facilitator Bank, which will launch in July, or sponsor others. Complete the brief interest form here.
- Organize community confabs, informal small group discussions about what matters to people and how to address act on those matters. If you want to help with this, join the Study Group’s next regular meeting, June 2, at noon, RSVP here, or reach out via email or phone.
- Take it to the next level by joining the Study Group online. Click here!
If you believe in community engagement…
Get engaged! Expand your connections. Share your ideas. Reach out!