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Many Aboriginal Australians in regional and urban Australia hold attachments to their homelands that have been compromised by policies of removal and dispossession. Government agencies and community groups have 'protocols' for engaging with Aboriginal communities, but these protocols have been transferred from remote parts of Australia where land tenure and rights are relatively secure and people can readily claim their community of belonging. The efficacy and applicability of engagement protocols are rarely evaluated, and have not been evaluated with respect to the differing tenure regimes of settled Australia under which rights to land and its resources remain contested and unfolding. This paper describes research conducted in three study areas of regional Australia, where resource management practitioners apply projects according to engagement protocols transferred from remote Australia. Analysis of government and community-based documents, and interviews with agency staff and Aboriginal people, identifies that genuine participation, cultural awareness, agreement-making, appropriate representation and the unique place-based factors affecting engagement remain key barriers to effective engagement with Aboriginal people by institutions in urbanising Australia. In particular, appropriate representation and a need for place-based approaches emerge as critical to engagement in settled Australia. This paper recommends that engagement be considered as a multi-layered approach in which generic 'engagement' threads are selected and re-selected in different combinations to suit contexts, places and purposes. Thus each place-based engagement initiative is not readily typified at the local scale, but taken together, make up a regional mosaic of different engagement structures and processes. KEY WORDS: Indigenous Australians, engagement, protocols, community-based environmental management

This research examines outcomes resulting from Community Profiles, a community visioning program facilitated by UNH Cooperative Extension in partnership with New Hampshire cities and towns. The Community Profile process is [...]

The importance of effective community planning and leadership cannot be overstated especially during times of major economic transition. Elected officials, community leaders, and residents who understand local conditions can then [...]

Many significant social issues facing communities today are increasingly being recognized as what scholars have termed 'wicked' or 'messy' problems (Ackoff 1999; Jackson 2003; Rittel and Weber 1973); that is, [...]

From the earliest medieval 'town versus gown' disputes (Bender, 1988) to the recent 'covenant for university engagement with communities (Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities [hereafter, [...], In many instances, departments of social work in universities and community-based social services agencies have common interests in improving professional practice and advancing knowledge in the profession. Effective university-community research collaborations can help partners achieve these goals jointly, but to be effective these collaborative partnerships require considerable effort and understanding by all partners involved. This article provides to novice investigators and social work agencies new to research partnerships an integrated discussion of important issues to develop the groundwork necessary for building and maintaining effective university-community social work collaborations. Through experience gained from a series of social work research partnerships, as well as an overview of relevant literature, the authors offer a set of strategies for building and sustaining research collaborations between university and community-based social work professionals. The general topics discussed are technology exchange, adopting a longitudinal perspective, knowing your partners, and practical contracting/budgetary issues.The article has relevance to beginning social work researchers, social work educators, and social work practitioners seeking to engage in collaborative partnerships that improve social work practice through research and advance the knowledge base of the profession. KEY WORDS: applied research; research collaboration; research-to-practice; technology transfer; university--community collaboration

Civil society action is thought to be a prerequisite for good governance, as well as an indicator for it. The assumption of a positive correlation has guided many development interventions. However, considering political synergies, frameworks of accountability and mobilization of communities to claim their entitlements as key elements of how civil society and governance interface, we find this hypothesis to be problematic. Evidence from two contiguous regions in rural north India suggests that where community organizations are assertive, the governance structures and institutions are not necessarily better oriented to their demands. Rather, where such organizations are able to exploit intra-elite conflict and forge alliances with a section of the elite, they are better able to influence service-delivery. However, even this strategy does not help to expand the political spaces available to poor people. Key words--South Asia, North India, community organizations, synergy, political space doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.04.020

The article discusses a study of leaders in ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) undertaken to understand their perspectives on their community organizations. The stories of the leaders illustrate their relationships to activism and they see community organization as a social movement and their work as part of a larger movement to change American society.

The role of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) as an economic and security community among member nations is presented.

The circumstances that helped originate a community-based organization in Senegal, the Association des Paysons de Tukar (APT), and those that led to its ultimate failure are discussed. The case study concludes that for such organizations to succeed over a long period, it is important to change the focus from their institutionalization to more participatory, empowering and deliberative socio-political conditions.

The governmentality theory is used to explore the opportunities and the challenges that have characterized the community participation policies. The results have shown that the new governance spaces are still inscribed with a state agenda and the responsibilities are pushed down to communities and individuals at the same time that control is retained at the center.

Documented, sustainable, scalable, replicable, and measurable practices and investment in systems to support these practices build a community of sharing and change management to improve the organizational effectiveness, resulting in organization building. The faith-based organizations such as Garnaliel Foundation and PICO are beginning to jump across the organizing model and leverage technology and the web effectively and incorporate more effective integrated organizing into mix.

SEIU organizers figured out how to help community groups undertake organizing initiatives independent of, but related to, the union's attempt to organize hospital workers and also, they sought to transcend the limitations of other labor-community partnerships by truly making the relationship a two-way street. It means taking the time to form personal relationships with community organizers and understanding the organizing styles, agendas, and interests of community groups.

Strategic communications is an art of presenting ideas clearly, concisely, persuasively and systematically in a timely manner to the right people and strategic communications is about maximizing available resources and positioning the organization, and proactively framing the message. While communicators can create economies of scale as they move the message toward mass audiences, nothing can replace the quality of the personal interaction created by the organizer.

The racial and gendered politics of the 1996 welfare reform movement incorporated an anti-immigrant stance that fundamentally altered non-citizens' access to public benefits. This article focuses on community mobilization efforts to reframe the discourse of the 'immigrant welfare problem' in order to restore benefits in the aftermath of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Drawing from two years of participatory research in community organizations, I found immigrant rights groups engaged in a variety of counter-rhetorical strategies. These strategies invoked a rhetoric of moral reasoning in order to promote the entitlement of non-citizens to remain eligible for public benefits. Utilizing social movement framing perspectives, I examine the claims-making strategies that appeal to common beliefs about aging, frailty, disability, and the obligation of the United States to its veterans. However, collective action frames comprised moral constructions of human rights for only specific immigrant groups that lost specific benefits. I consider the broader implications of such findings for immigrant and welfare rights movements. This case illustrates the significance of, and the dilemmas confronting, counter-framing strategies within community mobilization efforts.

The role of youth organizing in Chicago cannot be separated from the environment they work. Chicago's community organizers helped educate and mobilize residents to fight for policy reform for their neighborhoods, sometimes at the expense of neighboring communities.

The contrasting views on the issues of 'issue organizing' and 'community organizing' are discussed. Issue organizing refers to mobilizing people around an issue while community organizing refers to building relationships of trust between people sharing deeply held values.

This paper interprets case studies and theory on community involvement in beneficiary selection and benefit delivery for social safety nets. Several considerations should be carefully balanced in assessing the advantages of using community groups as targeting agents. First, gains from utilizing local information and social capital may be eroded by costly rent-seeking. Second, the potential improvement in targeting criteria from incorporating local notions of deprivation must be tempered by the possibility of program capture by local elites, and by the possibility that local preferences are not pro-poor. Third, intended outcomes may be undermined by unforeseen strategic targeting by local communities in response to national funding and evaluation criteria, or by declines in political support. Key words -- safety nets, poverty, targeting, community, social welfare, bureaucracy

Self-employment is a largely overlooked phenomenon in the United States. This business strategy has a significant impact on the lives of many people, particularly immigrant and minority residents. Throughout U.S. history, groups have used self-employment as a means toward economic advancement in the face of many obstacles--such as discrimination and community instability. A number of researchers have examined the relationship between economic activity and community development. This study focuses on self-employment, criminal victimization, and community organization. Logistic regression is used on data from the National Crime Surveys to determine the effect of employment status on fear of reprisal after being victimized. The results show that there is a negative relationship between fear of reprisal and self-employment. These findings suggest that the self-employed may be more willing to open businesses in inner cities because of their lower levels of fear. The present analysis suggests that public policy directed toward business development may help spur economic rejuvenation and growth in urban areas.

This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of 80 articles, chapters, and practitioners' guides focused on collaboration and coalition functioning. The purpose of this review was to develop an integrative framework that captures the core competencies and processes needed within collaborative bodies to facilitate their success. The resulting framework for building collaborative capacity is presented. Four critical levels of collaborative capacity--member capacity, relational capacity, organizational capacity, and programmatic capacity--are described and strategies for building each type are provided. The implications of this model for practitioners and scholars are discussed. KEY WORDS: coalitions; multiple stakeholder collaboration; community task forces; interagency coordinating councils; qualitative analysis.

The highly complex practice of building successful community coalitions is explored. Key dimensions related to coalition success are identified and best practices are delineated. Nine dimensions are explored that are critical to coalition success: coalition readiness, intentionality, structure and organizational capacity, taking action, membership, leadership, dollars and resources, relationships, and technical assistance. Two coalition case studies follow the discussion of dimensions and illustrate the journey traveled to create successful community coalitions. KEY WORDS: coalitions; coalition building; coalition best practices; collaborations; community capacity building.

Over the last 20 years, coalition building has become a prominent intervention employed in communities across America. Coalitions provide community psychologists and those in related fields with a chance to work with whole communities and to better understand how to create community change. As we reflect on the past two decades of community coalition building, there are many questions to be answered about this phenomenon. Why has there been such an upsurge in community coalition building activity? What is the impact of this activity? What have we as students of community learned? What are the questions that we need to be asking to improve the effectiveness of coalition building efforts and their evaluation? This set of articles will review the state of the art of community coalition building in both practice and research. The structure of the articles reflects a collaborative process, with multiple contributors from different disciplines, using a variety of formats. Because this is an evolving phenomenon wher e the questions asked are as important as the lessons learned, many of the major sections include dialogues with community experts from across the country and from multiple fields, including community psychology, public health, political science, public administration, and grassroots organizing. KEY WORDS: coalitions; coalition building; coalition best practices; collaborations; community capacity building.

The key issues of community operational research, outlined in a paper by Ritchie, have relevance to community projects in general and, we argue, a particular relevance to public art. We illustrate this relevance by describing eight case studies in public art, four in Japan and four in the west, and by considering the projects in a three-way factorial design, make a case for the art director system in the management of public art projects.

A professor of cultural studies believes evolution of government, business, employment patterns, and technology in the 21st century will create a new role for libraries in the communities they serve. Libraries will become part of a network serving the educational, informational, and employment needs of citizens for whom continual adult education is important.