Senior Sequence

Working Smarter in Community Development

RE: "Working Smarter in Community Development"-new tools for teachers, learners, funders, evaluators, others

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

I'm pleased to share three "knowledge-in-action briefs" as part of a new online resource for self-directed learning that aims to strengthen the field of community development in America. We hope that you and your students, partners, or clients, find these useful.

In 2004 and 2005, I organized a series of workshops to put researchers in dialogue with practitioners. These were funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in connection with the ambitious New Communities Program in Chicago (and its evaluation). Informed by those workshops, the new briefs are about how to work smarter, not just harder, on behalf of important goals at the local level:

(Brief 07-1) Rethinking Community Development: Managing Dilemmas about Values and Goals

(Brief 07-2) Stocks, Flows, and Dreams: Shaping and Measuring Neighborhood Change in Community Development

(Brief 07-3) Networks, Power, and a Dual Agenda: New Lessons and Strategies for Old Community Building Agendas

The Working Smarter project website also includes learning guides and links to helpful resources on the web, for example NeighborWorks America's excellent material on success measures and much more.

The new tools complement those at our companion website, www.community-problem-solving.net, which focus on key civic processes for leading change, such as negotiating, organizing stakeholders, participatory planning, forging effective partnerships, and more. More than 80,000 copies of these free tools have been downloaded worldwide since The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT launched in 2003, by educators and practitioners and others. Trainers and teaching faculty in planning, social work, public policy and management, sociology, political science, public interest law, and other fields have assigned the tools in their courses and programs.

The new Working Smarter briefs, though distinct in focus, were written in a similar format, with "ideas in brief" and "ideas in practice" sections as roadmaps upfront and with accessible language throughout.

Please note that no copyright permission is required for any and all educational use of the new briefs. But we'd love to get your feedback and also to hear about your use of the material, of course.

I'm grateful to Susan Lloyd and Julia Stasch at the MacArthur Foundation, Andy Mooney and Susana Vasquez at LISC-Chicago, and the workshop participants, web designers, MIT staff and students, and others who made this work possible.

With best wishes,

Xav _________ Xavier de Souza Briggs
Associate Professor of Sociology + Urban Planning
and Director, The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 9-521
Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A. (voice) +1 617-253-7956
(fax) +1 617-258-8594
(email) .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
www.community-problem-solving.net Works in progress: http://web.mit.edu/xbriggs/www/

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