Community Building Tips: Know Your Stuff
At this Stage
This post is the second part of a toolkit series on community building and social change.
Read this if you have an idea of the direction you would like to go to start building community. If you aren’t sure, you may need to spend more time at the start.
Skip this if you already have a significantly detailed understanding of the issue you are addressing and the organizations and individuals working in the area.
The NGM Circle Community Building Journey Map: You are researching and looking into it.
You’ve taken the steps to get started with your group and now you’re actively looking into getting things moving. Here are some tips to take you to the next checkpoint from our experience organizing NGM Circle groups across Canada.
At this stage, you’re now starting to take action researching and discovering what your group will do and what you’d like to impact. If you’re not sure what to do next, here are some suggestions:
Know your stuff
Take the time to get to know the issues you want to address in all of their complexity. It’s important to appreciate that social issues do not typically have easy “answers” or “solutions”. Taking the time to understand the history and background of what’s going on will help you to meaningfully discuss the subject with others.
What relevant research and evidence is already available on the subject?
What’s missing from the conversation or taken for granted?
Whose voices are heard? Whose are absent?
What are the common political and ideological positions?
Where is there tension or controversy?
What are others doing?
Get to know the broad context: Ask yourself “what’s the big picture of this issue?”, does it have local, national, or global impact? How have people responded to it in other cities or countries? What seems to be working? Doing a big picture environmental scan will help you see if/where you can broadly contribute or join the movement and might alert you to potential allies or larger networks to tap into.
Get to know the local context: What’s going on in your own community or town? Get a firm handle on if/how others are already working towards similar goals and get in touch with them. Learn from the experiences of others and see how you can support what’s already being done. These will become important relationships for you moving forward since social change happens through movement making, not atomistic individuals acting alone. The last thing you want to do is be perceived as stepping on someone else’s toes when you’re intending to help. Connect early and often with your local network to keep communication open and honest so that you can have their support and trust.
Where are the gaps?
Once you have a solid understanding of the nuances of the issues, the actions being taken locally and broadly, and the people involved, you will be able to identify what is not currently being done. Identifying gaps in current approaches can help you decide how to tackle issues in your own community. Ask yourself the following questions as you start to formulate a plan of action:
Why does this gap exist? You’re probably not the first well meaning person to look at what’s going on, there are going to be historical reasons for the status quo, appreciate where the status quo came from if you want to meaningfully make change. For example, have there been interpersonal conflicts or trauma locally among your potential partners? Are there social or economic barriers to getting involved? Are there historical grievances between organizations? There may be lingering tensions that need to be addressed in order to move forward.
What do others think? You don’t need to, and shouldn’t, try to do this all alone. Learn from others, invite them in, and co-create something together. If there are local people who have been working toward the same or a related cause, ask them what they would like to see happen and where you can contribute or support the movement. Learn as much as you can and gather as much feedback as possible in this stage so that you can make thoughtful decisions in the coming stages. In your broad research, get to know what has worked in other locales and what is suggested by the research if it is available, this can give you direction and guidance as you continue on your journey.
Summary
Actions to take before moving on to the next checkpoint
Research and understand the social issues you want to address
Research groups and individuals that are working on related issues
Identify and understand current gaps and barriers
Contact and meet with potential partners and supporters
Thanks for reading! This post is part of a toolkit series on community building. Stay tuned for the next installment!
-Ryan