Working Together 59 What Is Working Together? Lesson number one about working together: never assume that a large group gathered in one place means that the individuals have worked together, will work together, or even might work together for any reason. Breakfast meetings with an outside visitor can usually draw a crowd, but assume nothing. Words such as collabora- tion and partnership are cast about regularly, but they mean more than a casual meeting or conversation. Working together is the ability of a group of people to develop a relationship of trust that will allow different perspectives to be heard and discussed with ultimate agreement to take action on the issue. That’s more than a one-time gathering or an e-mail trail; it is a consistent, sustained relationship over time. Joining together requires trust and rela- tionships as well as process and information. It is never an abstrac- tion. What might work or could work or should work only works when people actually do something together. The spectrum of working together usually includes some version of cooperation, partnerships, coalition building, comprehensive community initiatives, and collaboration. The most interesting new work has a larger scope and more and varied stakeholders result- ing in better outcomes. Cooperation is an inherent quality and characteristic that is common to all four of these organizing groups. It can be its own kind of relationship, but often that includes simply sharing infor- mation, jointly sponsoring events, or not blocking something. Partnerships are quite common community structures formed between individuals, organizations, government agencies, and businesses that want to combine forces for results that match their own organization’s best interests. In a survey done in 2001, In It for the Long Haul: Community Partnerships Making a Difference by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change (2001), with business, govern- ment, and nonprofit leaders in the two hundred largest cities, respondents cited a number of payoffs for partnerships beyond just the organizations involved or the specific issue addressed by the partnership: 1. Community partnerships raise visibility on local issues: it’s hard for communities to solve problems they don’t know about. Morse, S. W. (2014). Smart communities : How citizens and local leaders can use strategic thinking to build a brighter future. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-21 16:39:44. C o p yr ig h t © 2 0 1 4 . Jo h n W ile y & S o n s, I n co rp o ra te d . A ll ri g h ts r e se rv e d . 60 Smart Communities 2. Partnerships can help communities set priorities for the allocation of resources. 3. Partnerships can unleash new talents and resources to address old and new problems and opportunities. According to these leaders, partnership activities include information sharing and financial and in-kind ...

1. Working Together 59
What Is Working Together?
Lesson number one about working together: never assume that a
large group gathered in one place means that the individuals
have
worked together, will work together, or even might work
together
for any reason. Breakfast meetings with an outside visitor can
usually draw a crowd, but assume nothing. Words such as
collabora-
tion and partnership are cast about regularly, but they mean
more
than a casual meeting or conversation. Working together is the
ability of a group of people to develop a relationship of trust
that
will allow different perspectives to be heard and discussed with
ultimate agreement to take action on the issue. That’s more than
a one-time gathering or an e-mail trail; it is a consistent,
sustained
relationship over time. Joining together requires trust and rela-
tionships as well as process and information. It is never an
abstrac-
tion. What might work or could work or should work only works
when people actually do something together.
The spectrum of working together usually includes some
version of cooperation, partnerships, coalition building,
comprehensive
community initiatives, and collaboration. The most interesting
new
work has a larger scope and more and varied stakeholders

2. result-
ing in better outcomes.
Cooperation is an inherent quality and characteristic that is
common to all four of these organizing groups. It can be its own
kind of relationship, but often that includes simply sharing
infor-
mation, jointly sponsoring events, or not blocking something.
Partnerships are quite common community structures formed
between individuals, organizations, government agencies, and
businesses that want to combine forces for results that match
their
own organization’s best interests. In a survey done in 2001, In
It
for the Long Haul: Community Partnerships Making a
Difference by the
Pew Partnership for Civic Change (2001), with business,
govern-
ment, and nonprofit leaders in the two hundred largest cities,
respondents cited a number of payoffs for partnerships beyond
just the organizations involved or the specific issue addressed
by
the partnership:
1. Community partnerships raise visibility on local issues: it’s
hard for communities to solve problems they don’t know
about.
Morse, S. W. (2014). Smart communities : How citizens and
local leaders can use strategic thinking to build a brighter
future.
Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-21 16:39:44.
C

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60 Smart Communities
2. Partnerships can help communities set priorities for the
allocation of resources.
3. Partnerships can unleash new talents and resources to
address old and new problems and opportunities.
According to these leaders, partnership activities include
information sharing and financial and in-kind support, but the
critical function is tackling tough issues together. Leaders in all
sectors saw this as essential to community success. Almost

5. three-
quarters of the business and nonprofit leaders and 90 percent of
the government leaders said that they work with other groups in
the community to address important issues. Although the
partner-
ships take different forms and directions, the survey found that
they clearly were forged around key issues. Specifically,
nonprofit,
government, and business leaders say that they communicate
with
different sectors on a regular basis; they provide direct services
to
community organizations beyond giving; create a culture of
caring
within their respective organizations with more than 50 percent
of businesses and 40 percent of local governments giving
employ-
ees paid time off to volunteer; and finally, all sectors say that
they
organize employee participation programs to help in the com-
munity through walk-a-thons, food drives, and so forth. Further,
a clear majority of leaders serve on boards and invite
representa-
tives from the other sectors to serve on these boards.
Partnerships,
according to these executives, are alive and well and making a
significant difference in the life of the community.
Coalitions are the third type of joint work strategy. Coalitions
can be informal or formal arrangements that bring diverse
groups
together for joint action on a single issue or a set of issues.
Members may have very different motivations for joining the
coalition. Coalitions can be short-term or long-term, but
through-
out members retain their individual identities, goals, and mis-

6. sions. Coalitions are formed for joint action to advocate, to stop
something, or to start something. Groups gather with a wide
array
of stakeholders around issues such as traffic control, crime,
envi-
ronmental concerns, corporate practices—you name it. For
example, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has forty-four
civic,
professional, and religious organizational members, including
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Church of the
Brethren,
Morse, S. W. (2014). Smart communities : How citizens and
local leaders can use strategic thinking to build a brighter
future.
Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-21 16:39:44.
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Working Together 61
and the YWCA, and more than one hundred thousand individual
members. A study on the sustainability of coalitions done for
the
Department of Health and Human Services in 2010
distinguished
coalitions from other kinds of community organizations in three
ways: 1) community coalitions can create collaborative capacity
among diverse organizations; 2) they help communities build
social capital; and 3) they are catalysts and agents for change
around a range of issues. The study identified six characteristics
that impact coalition functioning and effectiveness. These are
the
quality and consistency of leadership; a broad and engaged
mem-
bership; a governance structure in place; processes for
communi-
cation, decision making, and conflict resolution; a strategic
vision
for the coalition with complementary goals and objectives; and
context and history within the community (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 2011).
Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCI) is the fourth type
of
community process and organizational structure that has gained
popularity in community development over the last two decades.
It is a comprehensive strategy that empowers communities,

9. neigh-
borhoods, and community members to rely on each other, share
information, and work on initiatives together. It emphasizes
“com-
munity building” as both a means of neighborhood transforma-
tion and a principal outcome (Chaskin, 1999). CCIs do joint
work
on issues. They build and nurture their own capacity by
bringing
together all the available resources and skills to address
common
problems and meet opportunities. This approach builds social
capital and gives communities more options for decision
making.
According to Chaskin (1999), community capacity building is
. . . the interaction of human, organizational, and social capital
existing within a given community that can be leveraged to
solve
collective problems and improve or maintain the well-being of a
given community. It may operate through informal social
processes
and/or organized efforts by individuals, organizations, and the
networks of associations among them and between them and
the broader systems of which the community is a part. (p. 4)
A well-known example is the Dudley Street Neighborhood
Initiative in Boston, which was formed to combat the negative
influences on and treatment of the neighborhood. The Dudley
Morse, S. W. (2014). Smart communities : How citizens and
local leaders can use strategic thinking to build a brighter
future.
Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-21 16:39:44.

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62 Smart Communities
Street Neighborhood literally had become a dumping ground for
old cars, old furniture, and even old meat. Community members
had little control over crime, arson, or dumping. Working with
the city, the Riley Foundation, other local and national partners,
and each other, the community found its voice and got its neigh-
borhood back (Medoff and Sklar, 1994).
While places have had transformative experiences, many
community-building efforts have fallen short of what an Aspen

12. Institute report called “population-level changes.” There have
been individual improvements and even significant physical
improvements, but the efforts have not moved the needle for the
whole community. Expectations have exceeded
accomplishments
to date. But as John McKnight and Peter Block write in The
Abun-
dant Community (2010), “The starting point in every
transforma-
tion is to think differently . . . . The culture of community is
initiated by people who value each other’s gifts and are
seriously
related to each other. It takes time, because serious
relationships
are based upon trust . . . .” (pp. 115 and 117). This makes a
more
comprehensive vision integral to revitalization efforts.
Collaboration is the fifth type of community structure. Collabo-
ration means simply “to work together,” but its larger definition
has a clear set of requirements and assignments (Chrislip and
Larson, 1994, p. 5). Both a process and a goal for community
work, collaboration allows multiple stakeholders in a
community
to work together toward a common purpose, building on a com-
munity’s resources, talents, and assets. Understandably, this
basic
definition is the first step in the journey. All too often,
communi-
ties declare that this initiative or that is a collaboration; it
rarely
is at first glance. Collaboration is more often talked about than
actually done! It is one of the hardest community efforts to
orga-
nize and execute but can be the most effective. It is difficult for
groups and individuals to “give up” the control necessary to

13. form
a genuine collaboration. Collaborations differ from partnerships
and coalitions in that participating organizations actually merge
their financial and organizational functions at some level. The
sharing of resources, risks, and rewards is a foreign concept for
those organizations that want to go it alone with the hope of
having the spotlight shine on only their work and efforts. This
strategy is fraught with difficulty, as the challenges
communities
Morse, S. W. (2014). Smart communities : How citizens and
local leaders can use strategic thinking to build a brighter
future.
Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-21 16:39:44.
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