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An Asset Approach for Community Health and Well-being

Posted by Liz Weaver on December 31, 2011

IDeA (improvement and development agency in the UK) published 'A glass half-full:  how an asset approach can improve community health and well-being'

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Community Building in 9 Steps

Posted by Liz Weaver on December 30, 2011

The Aspen Institute and Rich Harwood of The Harwood Institute collaborated to develop a white paper on 'Assessing Community Information Needs - A Practical Guide'

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The Elusive Craft of Evaluating Advocacy

Posted by Liz Weaver on December 16, 2011

The authors of this paper argue that big changes only occur through advocacy efforts and yet, advocacy is an elusive activity to evaluate.

Advocacy requires an approach and a way of thinking about success, failure, progress, and best practices that is very different than the way we approach traditional philanthropic projects such as delivering services or modeling social innovations. It is more subtle and uncertain, less linear, and because it is fundamentally about politics, depends on the outcomes of fights in which good ideas and sound evidence don't always prevail.  This difference poses a particular challenge in evaluating advocacy efforts, exacerbating the resistance to advocacy from foundations that naturally resist in investing in projects that they can't judge as successes or failures. 

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Mindfully Engaging with Social Media

Posted by Sylvia Cheuy on November 30, 2011

My friend and colleague, Heather Plett is a gifted writer and facilitator who used an invitation to teach a workshop at a local university and the requests of several friends asking for her help to build a strong presence online as catalysts to create a beautiful guidebook entitled Social Media: A Beginner’s Guide to Meaningful & Mindful Engagement

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Policy Link Equity Summit and Social Media

Posted by Liz Weaver on November 11, 2011

 

I just spent two days with colleagues attending Policy Link's Equity Summit in Detroit.  There were 2300 folks attending from across the US and internationally.  The theme of the summit was to raise and change the discussion around Equtiy - that it is no longer an ethical thing to do but is becoming an economic imperative as the demographics are significantly shifting in the US. 

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Speed and Scale

Posted by Liz Weaver on October 19, 2011
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