Bill Berkowitz

Studying the Outcomes of Community-Based Coalitions

Community-based coalitions are popular structures for creating community benefits. But desired effects have been reported only for single cases, the overall documented evidence to date for positive coalition outcomes being weak. Methodological obstacles may account for much of the missing evidence, and research possibilities for addressing these obstacles are suggested. Alternative interpretations include the positions that coalitions in general are not effective intervention mechanisms, that traditional scientific methodology is poorly suited for capturing fine-grained coalition outcomes, and that coalitions and similar collaborative organizations are too complex to be adequately evaluated by the methodology that is now available.

Community and Neighborhood Organization

There are four compelling reasons why community psychologists should be directly concerned with community and neighborhood organization: 1 Community organizing, through both the process and product of action, should ordinarily lead to personal empowerment, wellness, and increased competence for those involved; that is, to individual outcomes that are among the primary goals of our discipline 2 Community organization, when successful, should also result in better communities; “better” in terms of the community’s expressed needs. That is, there should bebona fide community accomplishments to point to and tangible improvements in place 3 Scholarly reports (e.g., Berry, Portney, & Thomson, 1993; Fisher, 1985; Homan, 1994; Mattaini & Thyer, 1996; Mattesich & Monsey, 1997; Minkler, 1997; Mondros & Wilson; 1994; Mott, 1997; Wandersman & Florin, Chapter, 11, this volume; Wittig & Bettencourt, 1996) and popular accounts as well (e.g., Alinsky, 1971; Dyson & Dyson, 1989; Kahn, 1982; Medoff & Sklar, 1994) suggest that community organization does, in fact, lead to such positive outcomes, for both individuals and communities. Moreover, psychological research suggests that community organization may have additional personal and social consequences that we view as desirable: greater happiness(Campbell, 1981; Diener, 1984), increased neighboring (Ahlbrandt, 1984), stronger social support networks (Pilisuk & Parks, 1986; Taylor, Repetti, & Seeman, 1997), and lower individual and community pathology (Aneshensel, 1992; Gesten & Jason, 1987; Heller, 1990; House, Umberson, & Landis, 1988; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993; Naparstek, Biegel, & Spiro, 1982; Rodin, 1985) 4 Finally, in times of economic downturn or worse, community organization can stimulate cooperation and local self-reliance, at little or no cost, thus cushioning and protecting the community from outside adversity

Personal and community sustainability

Many community members reduce their community involvements as they more through midlife. This may be true for community psychologists as well. Yet research evidence suggests that-intellectually, at least-we can function at or near peak levels through our 80s and 90s. How then might we best sustain ourselves and our work through our entire lives? Answers may lie in full exercise of all capacities, in strong support networks, and in actions that meet ones deeper needs, “the needs of the soul”. These same principles may sustain community life as well, for some key principles of personal and community sustainability may be similar. Applications of these ideas to communities and to community psychology are discussed.

The community tool box: using the Internet to support the work of community health and development

SUMMARY Despite limited preparation through formal and non-formal education, local people throughout the world are engaged in the common work of building healthier communities. Some core competencies-including community assessment, planning, mobilization, and evaluation-are needed to address the variety of issues that matter to local communities. This report describes an Internet-based support system for community work known as the Community Tool Box (CTB) [http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/]. We examine the idea and origins of the CTB and its core content, access features, and applications. We review evidence for its use, implementation and dissemination strategies, and discuss core values that guide this internet-based work.

Roundtable Discussion and Final Comments

I think Tom has done a really fine job in outlining nine critical dimensions that determine the success or failure of coalitions. The general topics and the more focused areas under each topic very well reflect some of the best insights about coalition formation and development. I am also tremendously impressed by the two community stories that he has included; bravo to B. L. Hathaway and Babatunde Folayemi. These stories are very clearly written and well illustrate many of the principles and ideas that are described. They also add a terrific sense of the hard work and struggle that folks take on in their efforts to use coalitions as a method of change over the long-term. All in all, this introductory material is simply outstanding. I also want to offer some ideas for consideration.

Community Building with Technology

Abstract This article describes the creation and development of community technology initiatives in Lowell, Massachusetts, a historically poor and ethnically diverse mid-size city. In the past two years, many organizations have joined in community-wide efforts to share information and resources electronically and to launch new electronic technology projects. Recent initiatives include a comprehensive computerized public database of area-wide health and human service programs, a centralized multi-purpose community Web site, and a new inter-agency community technology collaborative. This article reviews these activities and describes general lessons learned in electronic community building that may apply to other communities.

Disseminating online tools for building capacity among community practitioners.

To prepare the workforce for building healthier communities, we need to assure capabilities of a diverse and geographically distributed community of practitioners. Although the Internet is used extensively to disseminate practice information, less is known about the relative impact of various strategies for promoting its use. This empirical case study examines implementation of dissemination strategies and their association with increased user sessions in the online Community Tool Box (CTB), a widely used resource for community building. Dissemination activities included social media efforts, eNewsletters, search engine optimization efforts, partnering with other Web sites, and implementing a global Out of the Box Prize. Results suggest that increased user sessions were associated with search optimization and “mashups” delivering CTB content through partners’ Web sites. The report concludes with a discussion of challenges and opportunities in promoting widespread use of capacity-building tools among those working to improve their communities.