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What is community development practice?
What is community development?
What does a community development practitioner do?
What is community learning and Development (CLD)?
Why is community development important?
What makes a good community development practitioner?
Community development is a process where people come together to take action on what's important to them. At its heart, community development is rooted in the belief that all people should have access to health, wellbeing, wealth, justice and opportunity.
- CD in 60 Seconds
We support best practice for community development in...
- CD in 60 Seconds
- What A Community of Practice Is
- Common Mistakes Or Misconceptions
- Understanding Your Community’S User Needs
- What to Start with
- Framework: The Support Communities Need
- People
- What A CDM Or CMgr Is
- Identifying Roles Within A Community
- Community Membership Model
- Going Beyond The ‘Usual Suspects’
Communities of practice are for people who share common job roles, responsibilities or remits. They do well through regular interaction and common goals.
Starting with technology platforms
Delivering a platform is just one part of helping a community thrive. Communities can exist without dedicated software solutions. They will often work around bad or overly interfering ones. Starting with a platform can mean too much emphasis on supporting a community through technology. See the platformssection below for more.
“If you build it, they will come”
Just setting up the community (software, designing a logo, creating rules) is not enough. It should just work, but it rarely does. Invite people and encourage them to participate. Get them to share ideas, issues and solutions with the community - avoid doing it for them. Continuously find ways to ensure your community becomes the go-to forum. This means a lot of involvement and encouragement, especially in the early days.
“Good communities manage/run themselves”
Healthy, mature communities can become self-sustaining and self-developing. But a community development manager (CDM) will never entirely step away. Part of the challenge is creating opportunities to grow or refocus community activities. Find and enable advocates and community leaders. With careful planning and delivery, the community manager (CMGR) will find their role becomes more supporter than leader.
The Government Service Design Manualemphasises user needs. This helps identify what your users need, not what you think they want. When thinking about researching user needs ask yourself: 1. who is in your community? 2. who would you like to be in your community? 3. what are their objectives? 4. how do you help them to meet those goals? 5. what is ...
Always start with the people. Focus on getting community membership right. Understand who they are and what their needs are. Work out who: 1. will help the community to function effectively 2. is already in the community 3. needs inviting Once you have the people then develop a programme of activities with them. Understand or establish what the com...
Communities need development and support in 3 areas in order to thrive: 1. people: community members and managers 2. programme: day-to-day activities and overall direction of travel 3. platform: online and offline places that interaction and activity happen Have a look at the community development framework. It has a checklist to help you plan how ...
Establishing criteria for membership
Make sure your community has the best opportunity to do well. Think about who is (and should be) a member of your community. Work with your users to agree a criteria for membership.
Interested others
These are people who do not qualify for membership, but are interested in joining a community. Avoid ending up with more of these people than core members. ‘Interested others’ should make up no more than 10% of your community.
Managing membership
Once you’ve established membership criteria, actively manage membership of the community. This includes: 1. identifying and inviting new people to join and participate 2. soliciting specific participation as appropriate – see programmeactivities below 3. removing people who no longer qualify for membership, for example moving roles or leaving Avoid adding or removing someone without telling them why.
The role has two main areas of focus: 1. to develop, evolve and support self-managed and self-developing communities 2. to act as a point of contact for all aspects of community development Community development includes developing and evolving: 1. directing members to relevant support and guidance 2. community best practice 3. approaches 4. princi...
New members
Whether someone is new to their job or has significant experience, they may be new to the community itself. Spend time and effort to bring them on board. You have a window of opportunity with new users to embed community participation as part of their daily activity. Help them understand its relevance and usefulness.
Community catalyst members
These are vocal and influential members. If they were new joiners to your community, they would probably bring a sense of authority and respect. Catalysts are important because they set the tone and activity for your community. They can influence others, both positively and negatively. So it’s important to keep them on side. Make them feel valued and influential, while enlisting their support. Challenge them to shape and build the community as a whole. But bear in mind that they can take over...
Leaders, for example hosts or moderators in digital communities
Community leaders (also known as hosts or moderators) share many characteristics with catalysts. But have a more formal role in day to day activities. Leaders help manage the community. They are identifiable to other community members as having an enhanced responsibility or a different role within the group. They are important because they are participant-leaders drawn from the community. Leaders understand the user needs. They also help lead and influence participation. Leaders are role mode...
A community membership model is a pyramid shape that shows how different community members relate to each other. For example, if you wanted to grow both the regulars and engaged users you might set up your pyramid in the following way. At the top, you’d have a small area containing the CDM and CMGR. Their role is community oversight and regular con...
If you do not understand the user needs and perspectives of less vocal members, they are unlikely to grow as community members. Think of ways to involve, consult, represent and listen to them. This may be uncomfortable or difficult for you, but is worthwhile. Set yourself a challenge to engage with a number of members each week. Remember to try dif...
This book will define and explain the concepts used in community development, as well as discuss community development principles, theories and frameworks. This book will share tools and processes for community asset mapping, needs assessment, community engagement, planning, and grant writing.
If society needs ‘community’, and community doesn't necessarily just happen, what is needed to help bring it about? How does community work support networks and promote greater connectivity? Chapter 3 provides an overview of community development.
- Alison Gilchrist
- 2019
What is Community Learning and Development (CLD)? Definition. CLD is a field of professional practice that enables people to identify their own individual and collective goals, to engage in learning and take action to bring about change for themselves and their communities.
Community development considers community members to be experts in their lives and communities, and values community knowledge and wisdom. Community development programs are led by community members at every stage – from deciding on issues to selecting and implementing actions, and evaluation.
The purpose of community development is understood by IACD as being to work with communities to achieve participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice.
