“This report, Not Quite Chaos, is intended as an aid to thinking more concretely and uniformly about processes and structures that the author believes are common features of the community-building challenge – features that can be modeled and understood in ways that make the ‘art’ of community building less like a Rorschach test and more like a disciplined field of study and practice. The report is divided into two parts. Part One of the discussion addresses the question: What is community building and how do we model it as a sustainable community change process? In so doing it presents a Community-Building Process Framework that draws heavily from notions about social capital, civic engagement, and community organizing to outline five clusters of activity that comprise community building?s principal components: resident engagement, agenda building, community organizing, community action, and assessment and message development. Part Two goes beyond this conceptualization to address an even more practical question: What might a community-building effort look like on the ground? In this section, the report provides insights into how one might manage processes as amorphous and organic as those outlined in Part One and presents illustrations for how local relationships might be structured to effectively address the community agenda. Part Two presents two Community-Building Structural Frameworks – an interim framework offered as a benchmark, work-in-progress formulation and an optimal framework that better represents an ideal version of how local relationships might be fashioned into a workable community-building effort.” – Publisher’s description CONTENTS ABSTRACT PREFACE INTRODUCTION: The Chaos, the Frameworks, and the Real World The Chaos and Beyond The Frameworks: A Perspective Putting the Frameworks to the Test About This Book PART ONE: A Process Framework for Community Building Cluster 1: Resident Engagement Cluster 2: Agenda Building Cluster 3: Community Organizing Cluster 4: Community Action Cluster 5: Assessing Outcomes, Developing Messages, and Sustaining the Work Summing Up PART TWO: A Structural Framework for Community Building The Players About the Proposed Interim Structure About the Proposed Optimal Structure Managing the Community-Building Enterprise: What Does That Mean? Management for Order, Not Control Summary CONCLUSION APPENDIX I: The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Neighborhood Transformation APPENDIX II: Background: Impetus for This Work APPENDIX III: Nonprofit Organizations and the Community: A Matter of Trust
