This document discusses wicked problems that communities face and new approaches to community engagement. It defines wicked problems as unstructured, multidimensional, and relentless issues like economic changes, leadership development, and job creation. Traditionally, communities engaged stakeholders at specific points, but now communities need tools to drive continuous change. The author discusses how their organization helps communities learn about their situation, analyze networks, launch collaborative initiatives, and measure impact to support long-term, capacity-building change efforts.

1. Thanks
to
our
friends
at
GreenForAll.org
(via
Flickr).
Wicked
Problems
and
Community
Prosperity
Imagining
Prosperous
Futures
Community
change
efforts
often
start
with
a
hunch.
People
get
the
feeling
the
challenges
they
face
are
not
theirs
alone.
They
wonder,
“What
if
…
?”,
and
the
desire
to
drive
change
is
born.
But
articulating
these
challenges,
and
communities
adjust
to
economic,
developing
a
strategy
for
addressing
industrial,
demographic,
and
them,
can
be
humbling.
Most
of
our
social
change.
community
issues
–
the
ones
that
 Creating
good
jobs
in
really
matter
–
are
“wicked
communities
whose
key
industries
problems.”1
They
are:
unstructured
are
just
emerging,
(no
one
cause),
multidimensional
(no
in
decline,
or
undergoing
radical,
one
solution),
and
relentless
(not
structural
change.
easily
solved).
 Increasing
the
entrepreneurial
capacity
of
“big
company”
But
these
are
exactly
the
kinds
of
communities.
problems
worth
solving.
 Helping
communities
invest
in
broad-­‐based
innovation-­‐centric,
Defining
the
Field
of
Action
knowledge-­‐driven
futures,
one
In
our
Community
Initiatives
Team’s
step
at
a
time.
practice,
“wicked
problems”
typically
While
wicked
problems
cannot
be
include:
“solved”
by
single
programs
or
interventions,
lots
of
people
doing
lots
 Building
leadership
capacity
and
community
agility
to
help
“stuck”2
of
different
things
in
shared
“fields
of
action”
can
make
a
difference.
This
makes
community
engagement
1
Horst
Rittel
developed
and
presented
this
central
to
public
policy
work
aimed
at
idea,
eventually
sharing
it
publically
in
Horst
wicked
problems.
W.
J.
Rittel
and
Melvin
M.
Webber,
"Dilemmas
in
a
General
Theory
of
Planning,"
And
Web2.03
is
changing
the
context
a
working
paper
presented
at
the
Institute
of
Urban
and
Regional
Development,
for
community
engagement.
University
of
California,
Berkeley,
November
1972.
2
A
reference
to
the
many
descriptions
of
Team,
and
Your
World
(Portfolio
Trade,
“stuckness”
and
remedies
for
getting
out
of
2007).
3
it,
including
Keith
Yamashita
and
Sandra
We
wish
there
were
an
easy
way
to
explain
Spataro’s
Unstuck:
A
Tool
for
Yourself,
Your
the
simultaneous
rise
of
the
interactive
web

2. Engaging
Communities
 Analyze
and
improve
their
community,
professional,
and
Once,
engaging
community
meant
social
networks
–
using
data
asking
for
input
at
a
specific
point
in
visualization
software
and
the
policy
or
program
design
process.
stakeholder
engagement
(Link)
 Develop
collaborative
initiatives
Today,
we
need
to
engage
community
and
build
shared
platforms
for
leaders,
thinkers,
and
doers
action,
including
www.wetoo.org,
throughout
the
change
process
–
a
region-­‐based
community
of
giving
them
the
tools
they
need
to
entrepreneurs
and
support
organizations
growing
business
in
drive
change
with
or
without
us.
mid
Michigan
(Launch)
Practically,
this
is
the
equivalent
of
 Measure
impact
to
inform
subsequent
strategy
and
initiative
turning
leaders
who
meet
once
a
development.
quarter
to
assess
strategy
or
performance
into
evangelists4
who
From
concept
and
resource
work
for
change
within
their
own
development
to
the
identification
of
families,
workplaces,
and
new
partners
and
strategic
neighborhoods.
approaches
as
project
needs
evolve,
CSW
values
the
opportunity
to
stick
Trying
New
Models
with
communities,
supporting
the
kind
of
change
efforts
that
make
sense
for
CSW’s
Community
Initiatives
Team
is
them
over
time.
helping
leaders
understand
this
new
model
of
engagement,
and
begin
to
Building
Capacity
for
the
explore
it.
Using
our
Learn,
Link,
Launch©
framework,
we
help
Longterm
communities:
While
community
change
efforts
come
in
all
shapes
and
sizes,
the
best
ones
 Understand
their
economic,
aspire
to
create
the
connective
tissue
social,
cultural
and
environmental
that
helps
stakeholders
collaborate
data,
and
identify
and
map
unique
not
once,
but
over
and
over
again,
community
assets
(Learn)
building
their
agility
and
capacity
for
innovation,
and
increasing
the
likelihood
that
they
will
prosper.
and
the
social
and
behavioral
changes
that
accompanied
it
without
using
this
kind
of
And
prosperous
communities
are
jargon,
and
we’re
open
to
suggestions.
To
what
we’re
all
about.
us,
web2.0
is
about
the
shift
from
web
as
place
to
web
as
platform,
experience,
and
way-­‐of-­‐working.
See
the
Wikipedia
entry
on
the
origin
of
the
term
Founded
in
1991,
Corporation
for
a
Skilled
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0.
4 Workforce
is
a
national,
non-­‐profit
We
use
“evangelist”
here
in
the
way
Guy
policy
research
and
practice
organization
Kawasaki
describes
in
“The
Art
of
located
in
Ann
Arbor,
Michigan.
Evangelism,”
his
January
2006
post
on
his
blog,
How
to
Change
the
World.
See Our
mission:
To
reimagine
everything
about
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_ar work
and
learning
for
the
prosperity
of
t_of_evan.html.
people,
firms,
and
communities.
CSW
900
Victors
Way,
Suite
350
Ann
Arbor,
MI
48108
734.769.2900
2
www.skilledwork.org