This document outlines steps governments can take to form effective partnerships with communities. It discusses removing barriers like bureaucracy, building community capacity through leadership training and forums, and focusing existing resources. The document uses Seattle, WA as a case study, noting how matching funds for neighborhood planning led to over 30,000 residents and 38 plans being created. When governments empower communities and make them partners, it results in implemented plans, multiplied resources, and stronger neighborhoods. Effective partnerships are place-based, strengths-focused, and community-driven.

1. FROM ADVERSARIES TO ALLIES:
GOVERNMENT-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

16. Department of

21. STEPS TO PARTNERSHIPS

22. Do No Harm:
• Don’t distract the community from its own
priorities.
• Don’t force the community into the
bureaucracy’s silos.
• Don’t take people’s time without showing
results.
• Don’t make the community dependent.
• Don’t undermine the community. Follow
the Iron Rule.

23. Remove Government
Barriers to Partnerships:
• Centralized decision making
• Cookie cutter programs and
regulations
• Inaccessibility (location, language,
hours, runaround)
• Bureaucratic red tape
• Know-it-all attitude

24. Build Community’s
Capacity for Partnership:
• Offer leadership training
• Assist with outreach tools like translation
• Work with associations of all types
• Provide forums for networking
• Highlight community strengths
• Offer non-meeting options for engagement
• Share stories of successful communities

25. Neighbourhood Service Centers

26. Neighbourhood Matching Fund

27. Ballard Neighbourhood

43. Carkeek Park

46. Eastlake Neighbourhood

49. Phinney Neighbourhood

52. Bradner Garden

69. SODO Neighbourhood

75. Fremont Neighbourhood

78. Neighbourhood Planning

79. How planning differs through matching fund:
• Community initiates planning
• Community defines scope of work
• Community hires planning expertise
• Community provides volunteer match

80. Columbia City

96. Value of community-driven planning:
• Implementation happens – plans don’t sit on
the shelf
• Resources are multiplied – government
resources leverage community’s
• Appropriate development occurs –
respecting unique character of neighbourhood
and culture of community
• More holistic and innovative solutions result
• A stronger sense of community is built

98. 38 neighbourhood plans:
over 5,000 specific recommendations

99. Over 30,000 Seattle residents involved

100. “We’re letting the
genie out of the bottle
and we’ll never
get it back in.”
— Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice, 1995

101. Existing
resources were
refocused
Six sector
managers
Community
stewardship groups
Interdepartmental
teams

102. $464 million in voter-approved
bond and levy measures:
1998: Libraries: $196 million
1999: Community Centers: $70 million
2000: Parks: $198 million

103. Tripled the Neighbourhood Matching Fund

104. A GLOBAL MOVEMENT

105. Other Examples of Government-
Community Partnerships:
• Official recognition of neighbourhood associations:
Portland, Oregon
• System of district councils and city neighbourhood
council: Dayton, Ohio
• Block organizing: Lawrence, Massachusetts
• Citizen councilors: King County, Washington
• Online participation: Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Decentralized interdepartmental teams: Toronto, Ontario
• Community-driven planning: Golden Plains, Australia
• Participatory budgeting: Porto Alegre, Brazil
• Leadership development programs: Indianapolis, Indiana
• Neighbourhood summits: Cincinnati, Ohio
• Community Empowerment Centers: Taiwan
• Big Society: England

106. HALLMARKS OF EFFECTIVE
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS:
Place-based
Strengths-based
Community-driven