Community involvement

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Community involvement is used here as a term similar to Participatory democracy, and more recent terms such as Open source governance.

Community involvement is about people and communities being able to play a full part in decision-making, for example local decision-making, and so influence the decisions which affect their lives. It is also about community empowerment, for example through access to appropriate information and adivce.

Proper community involvement is not tokenistic. Instead it is on-going, valued, meaningful, provides extensive opportunity and is genuinely and extensively influential.

Proper community involvement is not about allowing mere comment on decisions that have already largely been taken. Instead it begins at the design stage, the very beginning of any project or programme.

Proper community involvement does not include measures of success being foisted upon the community, or worse still simply being ignored. Instead it gives a primary role to the community in judging how successful a project or programme has been.

Contents 1 Action Ideas 1.1 Collaborate 1.2 New Ideas 2 Resources 2.1 Random facts 3 Related 4 International Links 5 References

[edit] Action Ideas

• Participatory carbon budgeting
• Participatory budgeting
• Participatory journalism
• Street parties
• Local quality of life conferences
• Community involvement weeks
• Youth Forum

[edit] Collaborate

• Open source conference design
• Open involvement

[edit] New Ideas

• Places, projects and networks pages in this wiki
  • Sustainable (Your town) pages in this wiki
  • Local sustainability directories in this wiki
  • Local sustainabiity picture libraries (online); share your pictures in this wiki (you need to be logged in to upload files - see Community Portal)

[edit] Resources

• Possibility Handbook: Ten Years of Imagination in Action, by Bliss Browne and Shilpa Jain, download (large) PDF file via Imagine Chicago

[edit] Random facts

• Participatory budgeting, first developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1988 to engage the urban poor in setting community-level budgets, had spread to some 200 - 250 municipalities in Brazil by 2006 and been adapted in cities worldwide. Source:Worldwatch Institute
• Between 2000 and 2006, the total number of cities with participatory budgets grew from 200 to roughly 1,200. Source:Worldwatch Institute

[edit] Related

SCA category:Community involvement Local needs met locally Sustainability networks Community & voluntary action Department of FUN! Environmental justice Global connections Communities online Community resources Networks and Networking Regeneration Arts and culture Sport	Wikipedia Participatory democracy Open source governance Anticipatory democracy Consensus democracy Deliberative democracy Direct democracy Non-partisan democracy Grassroots democracy Sociocracy open source politics open politics	Wikisphere BeyondVoting Campaigns Wikia WikiNode - sample article: Particpatory Politics

[edit] International Links

• Democracies Online
• Civicus - World Alliance for Citizen Participation
• Imagine Chicago Imagine projects and networks in th UK, Europe and Australia have been modelled on Imagine Chicago.
• Green Drinks international Organic, self-organising network of people who meet up monthly for a beer at informal sessions known as Green Drinks.
• Meetup Free service that organizes local gatherings about anything, anywhere. Topic groups include 'New Urbanism and Sustainable Development'

[edit] References

• Working in Wiki, Governing.com, May 2008

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