300 words  Building healthier cities and communities involves local people working together to transform the conditions and outcomes that matter to them. That civic work demands an array of core competencies, such as community assessment, planning, community mobilization, intervention, advocacy, evaluation, and marketing successful efforts. Supporting this local and global work requires widespread and easy access to these community-building skills. However, these skills are not always learned, nor are they commonly taught either in formal or informal education. The internet can provide an effective means for transmitting skill-building resources broadly and inexpensively. This section describes a free resource for building healthier communities called the  Community Tool Box . WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY TOOL BOX? BACKGROUND. In the early days of the World Wide Web (1995), we began work on an Internet-based resource for community change and improvement, the "Community Tool Box" (CTB). Our mission is to promote community health and development by connecting people, ideas, and resources. We focused on developing practical information for community building that both professionals and ordinary citizens could use in everyday practice -- for example, leadership skills, program evaluation, and writing a grant application. The emphasis was on these core competencies of community building, transcending more categorical issues and concerns, such as promoting child health, reducing violence, or creating job opportunities. We developed a broad and evolving Table of Contents and started writing, one section at a time. By mid-1999, there were over 160 how-to sections and over 3,500 pages of text available on the Community Tool Box. As of July 2000, there were over 200 sections online and more than 5,000 pages of text. AUDIENCE. The audiences or end users for this site include: People doing the work of community change and improvement (community leaders and members) People supporting it (intermediary organizations such as public agencies or university-based centers) People funding it (governmental institutions, foundations, and others). Use of the Community Tool Box grew nearly exponentially: over 100,000 hits in 1997, over 500,000 in 1998, and well over one million in 1999. Guestbook data confirm that users represent a wide variety of community-building settings and positions and come from all corners of the planet. ATTRIBUTES. Building healthier communities is hard work, requiring frequent adjustments to emerging opportunities and barriers. To be a resource for community work, a "tool box" would exemplify the following attributes: Its content needs to be  comprehensive . Since effective community members and practitioners need a variety of skills, sections of the Tool Box would have to reflect a broad array of core competencies (e.g., skills in conducting listening sessions, organizing focus groups, leading meetings, group facilitation and recording). The inf.

1. 300 words
Building healthier cities and communities involves local people
working together to transform the conditions and outcomes that
matter to them. That civic work demands an array of core
competencies, such as community assessment, planning,
community mobilization, intervention, advocacy, evaluation,
and marketing successful efforts. Supporting this local and
global work requires widespread and easy access to these
community-building skills. However, these skills are not always
learned, nor are they commonly taught either in formal or
informal education. The internet can provide an effective means
for transmitting skill-building resources broadly and
inexpensively. This section describes a free resource for
building healthier communities called the
Community Tool Box
.
WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY TOOL BOX?
BACKGROUND.
In the early days of the World Wide Web (1995), we began
work on an Internet-based resource for community change and
improvement, the "Community Tool Box" (CTB). Our mission is
to promote community health and development by connecting
people, ideas, and resources.
We focused on developing practical information for community
building that both professionals and ordinary citizens could use
in everyday practice -- for example, leadership skills, program
evaluation, and writing a grant application. The emphasis was
on these core competencies of community building,
transcending more categorical issues and concerns, such as
promoting child health, reducing violence, or creating job
opportunities.
We developed a broad and evolving Table of Contents and
started writing, one section at a time. By mid-1999, there were
over 160 how-to sections and over 3,500 pages of text available

2. on the Community Tool Box. As of July 2000, there were over
200 sections online and more than 5,000 pages of text.
AUDIENCE.
The audiences or end users for this site include:
People doing the work of community change and improvement
(community leaders and members)
People supporting it (intermediary organizations such as public
agencies or university-based centers)
People funding it (governmental institutions, foundations, and
others).
Use of the Community Tool Box grew nearly exponentially:
over 100,000 hits in 1997, over 500,000 in 1998, and well over
one million in 1999. Guestbook data confirm that users
represent a wide variety of community-building settings and
positions and come from all corners of the planet.
ATTRIBUTES.
Building healthier communities is hard work, requiring frequent
adjustments to emerging opportunities and barriers. To be a
resource for community work, a "tool box" would exemplify the
following attributes:
Its content needs to be
comprehensive
. Since effective community members and practitioners need a
variety of skills, sections of the Tool Box would have to reflect
a broad array of core competencies (e.g., skills in conducting
listening sessions, organizing focus groups, leading meetings,
group facilitation and recording).
The information needs to be
easily available
on demand, and in particular readable, printable, and
downloadable from one location.
The information must be
useful
, providing step-by-step guidance that the reader can apply
directly in practice.
The tone of the material should be

3. friendly and supportive
of users who may lack sufficient knowledge or feel uncertain
about what to do.
Forums or exchange mechanisms should be available to
connect people
who have relevant experience that can help facilitate
applications and adjustments in diverse contexts and situations.
An on-line resource should help
reduce inequalities
, or certainly not increase them. By being (nearly) universally
available and free through the World Wide Web, our tools may
help reduce inequities in local capacity for community change
and improvement.
Since there is such high turnover among people and projects,
the tools should help build
capacity
for continuous learning among old, new, and emerging
generations of those doing the work.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE CORE CONTENT.
A conceptual framework or model for building healthier
communities guides choices for core content in the Community
Tool Box. Based on earlier conceptual models, this framework
outlines a dynamic and iterative process with six phases, and
related competencies, associated with facilitating community
change and improvement:
Understanding Community Context (e.g., assessing community
assets and needs)
Collaborative Planning (e.g., developing a vision, mission,
objectives, strategies, and action plans)
Developing Leadership and Enhancing Participation (e.g.,
building relationships, recruiting participants)
Community Action and Intervention (e.g., designing
interventions, advocacy)
Evaluating Community Initiatives (e.g., program evaluation,
documentation of community and system change)
Promoting and Sustaining the Initiative (e.g., social marketing,

4. obtaining grants).
Both science-based practice and experiential knowledge inform
choices for content development for the Community Tool Box.
Ongoing research by members of the Tool Box team, and many
others throughout the world, suggest key factors or components
of successful efforts to bring about community change and
improvement (e.g., leadership, having a targeted mission, action
planning).
Promising practices from this emerging science base, and
ongoing input from community leaders and practitioners, is used
to focus content development on core competencies (e.g.,
building leadership skills, creating a vision and mission,
developing an action plan). Similarly, research and practice in
behavioral instruction helped identify structural elements of the
how-to sections or learning modules (i.e., what, why, how-to
steps, etc.).
FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING HEALTHIER
COMMUNITIES: A GATEWAY TO ILLUSTRATIVE TOOLS
Understanding Community Context
Understanding and Describing the Community
Developing a Plan for Assesing Local Needs and Resources
Collecting Information About the Problem
Analyzing Community Problem
Analyzing Root Causes of Problems: The "But Why?"
Technique
Collaborative Planning
VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, Action
Plans): An overview
Proclaiming Your Dream: Developing Vision and Mission
Statements
Creating Objectives
Developing Successful Strategies: Planning to Win
Developing an Action Plan
Identifying Strategies and Tactics for Reducing Risks
Promoting Coordination, Cooperative Agreements, and
Collaborative Agreements Among Agencies

5. Developing Multi-sector Collaborations
Developing Leadership and Enhancing Participation
Developing a Plan for Building Leadership
Servant Leadership: Accepting and Maintaining the Call of
Service
Developing a Plan for Increasing Participation in Community
Action
Promoting Participation Among Diverse Groups
Methods of Contacting Potential Participants
Developing a Plan for Staff Hiring and Training
Developing a Plan for Involving Volunteers
Providing Supervision for Staff and Volunteers
Conducting Effective Meetings
Community Action and Intervention
Strategies for Community Change and Improvement: An
Overview
Designing Community Interventions
Adapting Community Interventions for Different Cultures and
Communities
Developing a Plan for Advocacy
Organizing Study Circles
Registering Voters
Organizing Public Demonstrations
Evaluating Community Initiatives
Our Evaluation Model: Evaluating Comprehensive Community
Initiatives
A Framework for Program Evaluation: A Gateway to Tools
Developing an Evaluation Plan
Measuring Success: Evaluating Comprehensive Community
Initiatives
Gathering and Using Community-Level Indicators
Promoting and Sustaining the Initiative
Understanding Social Marketing: Encouraging Adoption and
Use of Valued Products and Practices
Working with the Media
Making Community Presentations

6. Using Principles of Persuasion
Creating a Website
Achieving and Maintaining Quality Performance
Developing a Plan for Financial Sustainability
Strategies for Sustaining the Initiative
Applying for a Grant: The General Approach
HOW DO YOU GET AROUND THE TOOL BOX?
Upon arrival at any desired section, the reader will find this list
of choices:
Main Section
-- the text of the section with these components:
What
(a clear description of the skill),
Why
(rationales or descriptions of consequences for using or not
using the skill), When (the conditions under which the skills
should or should not be used), and
How
(descriptions of the discrete behaviors that constitute desired
performance). Main Section also contains a Resources list that
details sources of information, contacts, and related websites.
Examples
-- specific illustrations of real-world illustrations or stories of
using the skill that reflect varied issues or concerns (e.g.,
substance abuse, child and youth development, urban
community development) and places or contexts (e.g., urban,
rural; specific ethnic or cultural communities)
Tools & Checklists
--
Tools
provides training and technical assistance materials such as
exercises and handouts; Checklists provides prompts or brief
phrases to help you remember important considerations and
steps.
PowerPoint
-- ready-to-use summaries of the section useful in providing

7. training and technical assistance.
In addition, we use customized
gateways
to maximize efficient access to valued tools. One type of
gateway uses promising models or frameworks (e.g.,
Community Health Improvement Process, A Framework for
Program Evaluation, or Writing a Grant Proposal) to guide the
reader to core competencies related to each phase and operation
of the framework (e.g., forming a coalition, identifying
stakeholders, documenting the problem). These frameworks help
orient the community practitioner to recommended activities --
and related how-to information -- that can help support the local
effort.
Another valued gateway is the
Troubleshooting Guide
. This access point starts with a list of 13 commonly faced
problems in the work of community change and improvement.
By clicking on a particular problem situation (e.g., "We haven't
had enough community action."), the reader calls up a list of
clarifying questions (e.g., "Does the group know the specific
changes we want to see made?" or "Do we have enough
members to carry out our actions?"). Should the answer to any
question be "No," the user may click again to retrieve related
how-to information (e.g., "Developing an Action Plan,"
"Recruiting Members," "Recognizing Allies"). Since we may be
more open to learning new skills when facing a challenge, the
Troubleshooting Guide provides valued user-tailored access to
the tools.
WAYS TO USE THE COMMUNITY TOOL BOX
THE COMMUNITY TOOL BOX HAS BEEN USED FOR
SEVERAL SPECIFIC PURPOSES:
The learning modules are being used extensively for training
and technical assistance
. For example, many support organizations, including our
University of Kansas Work Group, have used the tools in
periodic workshops and ongoing consultation. They have been

8. used to support a variety of community-based initiatives
including those addressing categorical issues such as adolescent
pregnancy, or substance abuse, and broader issues such as
child/youth development, public health, or urban community
development.
The Community Tool Box has been used as textbook readings
for both traditional and distance learning courses
. For example, a University of Kansas distance learning course
on "building healthy communities" used compressed video (i.e.,
television) and CTB materials to create distributed learning
communities among teams of both traditional students and
community members and practitioners in regional sites
throughout Kansas.
The Community Tool Box has been used to help build capacity
of funded community-building initiatives
.
We are working with grantmakers and the community
partnerships they support to enhance core competencies among
large numbers of community members and practitioners engaged
in this work. These tools are being used to support community
work of a great variety of people in diverse contexts throughout
the world.
Entries in the
Guestbook
suggest that users range in age from youth (in high school civic
classes) to older adults (working on elder issues). They include
community members, leaders and professionals working in such
domains and disciplines as public health, child and youth
development, environmental justice, education, mental health,
social welfare, self-help, international development, policy
advocacy, rural development, and urban community
development.
CHALLENGES, STRENGTHS, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
SEVERAL PROMINENT
CHALLENGES
MUST BE ADDRESSED TO ENHANCE THE UTILITY OF

9. THE TOOL BOX:
We need to continue to extend the breadth, depth, and
generality of core content
.
By partnering with others with technical and experiential
knowledge, we hope to enhance the
breadth
of content topics, the
depth
of how-to information, examples, stories, and tools, & the
generality
of application with different issues (e.g., child health,
violence), cultures (e.g., Africa, Middle East), languages (e.g.,
Portuguese, French), and contexts (e.g., urban, rural, global)
We need to enhance the interactivity of the Community Tool
Box
.
We plan to make greater use of online forum capabilities to
connect those with complementary knowledge and experience.
We seek widespread adoption and use of the tools and
competencies in community practice
.
Social marketing efforts include links to related sites,
brochures, direct electronic mailing to current and prospective
users, and partnering with state, national and global initiatives
for community health and development.
The Community Tool Box is becoming an extraordinary
resource for teaching and learning:
It offers massive amounts of information for supporting
development of core competencies in building healthier
communities.
It allows input from the field about promising practices for
community work. By linking with a growing local (and global)
community of change agents, the Community Tool Box can help
filter and communicate innovations emerging from the diverse
(but related) work of community change and improvement.

10. The Community Tool Box provides a powerful engine for
diffusion of practical information for supporting community
work. By partnering (and linking) with state, national and
global networks, we can promote widespread adoption,
adaptation, and use of tools for community transformation.
There are several future prospects for using communications
technologies to help create a civic ecology -- an environment in
which local people routinely work together to effect the
conditions and outcomes that matter to them
.
This will demand a support infrastructure for "
going to scale
"--for making civic work easier and more rewarding for large
numbers of people in many different communities. New
communication technologies -- such as the Community Tool
Box -- can be used to help build capacity for effecting
community change in the millions of local contexts that might
benefit.
Imagine a
grand exchange network that connects a diverse community of
people
engaged in transformational work. For example, online forums
might join people addressing different categorical issues (e.g.,
stopping violence, improving childhood outcomes), perhaps
helping reveal the underlying social determinants of related
concerns. Forums could be used to connect people with diverse
experience -- for example, novices and veterans in the work or
those with histories of discrimination and those with power. It
could also help join those who work in different places (e.g.,
urban neighborhoods and rural communities) and cultural
contexts (e.g., African-American, Latino, emerging democracies
of Eastern Europe).
New communications technologies can help connect people
-- both locally (e.g., across ethnic neighborhoods in the same
city) and globally (e.g., across communities in different states,
provinces, or nations).

11. IN SUMMARY
Building healthier cities and communities fits with global trends
of self-determination and democracy building. The widespread
and growing availability of Internet-based resources, such as the
Community Tool Box, offer flexible and efficient means to give
voice to local concerns and innovations, connect people in
common purpose, and diffuse tools for amplifying local work.
Such innovations transcend distance in promoting democratic
social relations across communities of place and interest.
Imagine: universal, affordable access to tools for community
building and transformation in local libraries, faith
communities, cafes, and public buildings. In this new civic
ecology, we join together in common purpose across space and
time -- furthering the work of democracy and reducing the
inequities that hinder our pursuit of justice.
Contributor
Stephen B. Fawcett
Vincent T. Francisco
Jerry A. Shultz
Genevieve Nagy
Bill Berkowitz
Thomas J. Wolff
Print Resources
Cairncross, F. (1997).
The death of distance: How the communications revolution will
change our lives
. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Fawcett, S., Francisco, V., Hyra, D., Paine, A., Schultz, J.,
Russos, S., Fisher, J. & Evensen, P. (2000). Building healthy
communities. In A.Tarlov (Ed.),
Society and population health reader: State and community
applications
. New York, NY: The New Press.
Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., & Vliet, M. (1993).
Promoting health through community development. In D.S.
Glenwick & L.A. Jason (Eds.),

12. Promoting Health and Mental Health in Children, Youth and
Families
, (pp. 233-255). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company
.
Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Schultz, J., Richter, K.,
Lewis, R., Williams, E., Harris, K., Berkley, J., Fisher, J.&
Lopez, C. (1995). Using empowerment theory in collaborative
partnerships for community health and development.
American Journal of Community Psychology
, 23(5), 677-697.
Fawcett, S., Francisco, V., Paine, A., & Schultz, J. (2000).
Working together for healthier communities: A research-based
memorandum of collaboration
. Public Health Reports,
(115), 174-179.
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