Creating and Sustaining Community Vision

Community Leadership - Collaboration and Engagement

Community leadership is perhaps the most difficult role performed by the board. It involves creating and sustaining a community governing consensus that supports the board in carrying out its policy governance responsibilities. Building this consensus requires an abundance of community engagement and collaboration and a set of governance tools that are quite eclectic. They include a combination of representative community task forces, public listening sessions, stake-holder advisory subgroups, charettes, and other community-centered information gathering and dialogical processes (Community Engagement Guide). These tools enable boards to expand their policy governance role beyond the organization to the larger community the organization serves.

Community collaboration and engagement processes differ from stakeholder analysis because the perspective for determining success is not limited to the satisfaction of constituent interest groups potentially affected by an initiative but the well-being of the community writ large. But this well-being is not simply a matter of considering what is best for now, but what is best for tomorrow and the days to follow. This perspective is more long-term and intergeneration in its focus. It requires boards to embrace processes that are indeterminant and on-going. It requires boards to start initiatives with trust that those who follow in their foot-steps will consummate their initiatives (The Baker County Comeback, Washington County Vision Action Network, Mt Hood Stewardship Project).

Exhibit 4.2.5

Community Leadership: Building and Sustaining a Governing Consensus

Tools and Strategies	Purpose	Examples/Resources
Community Envisioning and Strategic Planning Listening Forums/Sessions SWOT environmental scan Stakeholder Analysis Organizational Capacity Goal-Setting	Collect information to identify shared values and priorities that can serve as foundation for building a governing consensus and leveraging community resources	Community Listening Forum Toolkit City of Portland
Building Community Partnerships	Identifying opportunities for private, public, nonprofit and civil society sector actors to work together to jointly undertake community-building activities.	Washington County Vision Action Network Example Baker County Comeback Example Mt. Hood Stewardship Partnership
Network Governance Contracting Out Services What contracts are currently in place & why? Intergovernmental Agreements and MOU’s What agreements are currently in place & why?	Potential purposes include saving money, increasing efficiency, enhancing effectiveness, promoting equity, building community capacity. Similar range of purposes as contracting out services.	Cooper, Phillip.2003. Governing by Contract: Challenges and Opportunities for Public Managers. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Morgan, Douglas F. and Mike Gleason, 2020. Local Elected Officials: Guardians of Good Governance. Irvine, CA: Melvin Leigh, pp. 88-89. Morgan & Gleason, 2020. Local Elected Officials: Guardians of Good Governance, pp. 70, 73,89,101, 110, 150, 189.
Building the Practices of Good Citizenship and Civic Renewal	Using your leadership role to model and educate citizens in the best practices of democratic citizenship	Citizen Academies

Example Documents:

Tools for Conciliatory Leadership

Vision and Mission Statements

New Public Leadership Book - EMERGE

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