[TEXT: Young African Leaders Initiative Online Training Series]
I’m Jeff Franco, and this is “Inspiring Community
Participation” to solve local problems.
In this lesson we will learn:
why it’s important for you to know your community and its [TEXT: Why it’s important to know your community and its needs.]
needs before you inspire them to act;
how to overcome apathy or lack of interest [TEXT: How to overcome apathy or lack of interest.]
from community members; and
how to build and maintain momentum once you’ve [TEXT: How to build and maintain momentum.]
started a project.
[TEXT: Jeff France, VP and Executive Director, City Year Washington, DC] First, knowing your community and its needs.
It is critically important that you get to know your
community intimately.
What are its greatest issues and challenges? [TEXT: Issues, Challenges]
Why do they exist?
Do your research and learn about the causes
of the problems.
Become an expert on the issues and then ask yourself,
“What would it take to solve these problems?”
Think big, and think creatively. [TEXT: Think big, Think creatively]
People are inspired to act when there’s a clear vision and they [TEXT: Clear vision]
believe you have a plan of action. [TEXT: Plan of action]
Do your homework; come up with a plan that [TEXT: Do your homework]
is going to work.
You will only be effective at inspiring others to act if you
are clear about the problem you’re trying to solve, and how
to go about solving it.
It can be a challenge to inspire community participation
and overcome apathy.
It’s your job to inspire the community to act! [TEXT: Inspire the community to act]
There are many reasons why community members choose
not to participate.
For example, there can be personal barriers. [TEXT: Personal barriers]
People may feel they lack the skills or knowledge
to make a difference.
Or, there’s a lack of ownership. [TEXT: Lack of ownership]
People feel the problem is not theirs to solve,
that somebody else will take care of it.
There are many creative ways to inspire community participation,
and each one starts with understanding community members [TEXT: Understand community members]
and their motivations. You can trigger these motivations to [TEXT: and motivations]
create a personal link between the community member you want [TEXT: Create a personal link]
to engage and the issue you’re trying to address. [TEXT: between community and issue]
For example, if you’re working to improve schools, you can
reach out to parents in the community and inspire them
to get involved.
You could appeal to their emotions as parents, [TEXT: Appeal to their emotions]
drawing a connection between the students you’re
serving and their own.
A second strategy for inspiring community participation is to
motivate people around a vision of what’s possible. [TEXT: Motivate people around a vision]
Inspire them to think big.
Help them imagine what is possible if they work together.
Describe what could be achieved if the community came together [TEXT: Describe what could be achieved]
and solved the problem you’re trying to address.
It’s likely that your audience will have a limited view of
what’s possible if they haven’t given the problem or
solution much thought.
Inspiring them to “think big” and be part of transformational [TEXT: Inspire them to think big]
community change might be enough to motivate them to act.
Another strategy for inspiring community participation is to
invite everyone to be part of finding the solution. [TEXT: Encourage collaboration]
Rather than propose a solution yourself, ask all the
stakeholders to come together to discuss the problem,
and collectively find a way to solve it.
By increasing the level of community participation in
the process, you’re increasing community buy-in and likelihood [TEXT: Increase community buy-in]
that they’ll see the project through to the end.
When people feel involved in the process, they are more
likely to stay involved for the long term. [TEXT: Stay involved for the long term]
Once you’ve inspired the community members to act, your
next task is to maintain that momentum, keep them motivated. [TEXT: Maintain momentum]
This can be especially challenging when you’re working
to address big problems that can take weeks, months or
even years to solve.
It can be easy for community members to become uninterested
or disinvested in long-term projects because they may feel
they aren’t seeing results.
Celebrate small victories throughout the process, [TEXT: Celebrate small victories]
to show people that they are making a difference.
You can share statistics about how many people your project
has served, or how many people are involved.
Or, you can share personal stories about the people you
have served, and how your work has enhanced the community.
In addition, make it easy for community members [TEXT: Make it easy to stay involved]
to stay involved.
Don’t lose the momentum you gained from the start.
Continue to create and communicate opportunities
for the community.
Incredible things can happen when communities come together [TEXT: Incredible things can happen]
to solve problems. Invest your time and energy into inspiring
community participation, and I know you’ll be amazed
by what’s possible!
[TEXT: Test Your Knowlege YALI.state.gov YALI Network] After you’ve completed all the units in this course at
YALI.state.gov, you can test your knowledge and earn a
[TEXT: Produced by the U.S. Department of State] YALI network certificate.