Building Coalitions For Community-Led Change

A new action guide offers prac­ti­cal strate­gies for coali­tions of com­mu­ni­ty groups to cre­ate col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ments that dri­ve mean­ing­ful change for chil­dren, youth and families.

Find­ing Uni­ty in Com­mu­ni­ty: How Build­ing Con­sen­sus Can Shift the Dynam­ics of Sup­port empha­sizes the pow­er of broad com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and shared deci­sion-mak­ing pow­er to improve the health and well-being of youth and fam­i­lies. The Edna Ben­nett Pierce Pre­ven­tion Research Cen­ter at Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty devel­oped the guide with sup­port from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and in con­cert with six com­mu­ni­ties imple­ment­ing the Foundation’s Evidence2Success™ framework.

Learn more about Evidence2Success

The guide is designed for coali­tions that bring togeth­er cross-sec­tor part­ners, including:

• non­prof­its;
• local busi­ness­es;
• edu­ca­tors;
• neigh­bor­hood associations;
• youth groups;
• faith orga­ni­za­tions;
• par­ent groups; and
• local gov­ern­ment agen­cies that serve chil­dren and youth.

Build­ing coali­tions is an effec­tive approach to address­ing issues that affect com­mu­ni­ties because they unite var­ied per­spec­tives and resources around a shared goal, increas­ing com­mu­ni­ty own­er­ship and the like­li­hood of last­ing change. Using this strat­e­gy can lead to sev­er­al ben­e­fits, includ­ing enhanc­ing com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment; fos­ter­ing inclu­sive, col­lab­o­ra­tive and pro­duc­tive envi­ron­ments for diverse stake­hold­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to engage; and increas­ing involve­ment in and own­er­ship of activities.

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