Revitalizing Communities

Centre for Community Enterprise

Many, many towns and neighbourhoods across Canada have been hit hard by economic, social, and environmental change. The issues they face are complex. Private business and government alone cannot restore prosperity to these communities. Nor can other leaders and organizations working on their own.

For communities to revitalize, a broad range of leaders, citizens, groups, and organizations must work together over the long term. They must have solid information about local circumstances, opportunities, and aspirations. They must share an idea of the community's future and how that can become a reality.

CCE has a long history of working with citizens and groups to increase their ability to manage change in their community, so it is a good place for them, and their children, to live in. Ours is first and foremost an inclusive approach to revitalization: inclusive of diverse citizens, organizations, and groups; inclusive of their economic, social, and environmental needs and values. Here are some of the specific services we provide:

Community Resilience, a process that helps citizens identify the factors that hinder their town or neighbourhood's ability to take action, and then work to address these barriers. Many people that have used Community Resilience have gone on to develop their own community plan.
Training and education that increases local readiness and capacity to undertake community economic development. These seminars, workshops, and other media are designed for citizens in general, elected officials, or organization staff and board members, to achieve a range of levels in awareness and skill. The subject matter may concern specific tools and techniques of community economic development, or broader principles and applications of this development strategy.
Community economic development planning, which in addition to the facilitation of public dialogue and education in local development, involves survey design and analysis, sector specific research, and assistance with the determination of mission, goals, objectives, and strategic options. It also includes the development of benchmarks and indicators that communities can use to support on-going learning and assessment of their progress. (Effective application of benchmarks and indicators has been a primary focus of CCE's work since 1999.)
Building partnerships and alliances within or between sectors in a community or region. CCE trains citizens and organizations in the skills and methods that will enable them to collaborate to the community's benefit, despite their differences.

These are some of our many clients: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and the following British Columbia communities - Kaslo, Powell River, Revelstoke, Smithers, Houston, Vancouver (Downtown Eastside).

A SAMPLE OF CCE IN ACTION

Like many villages across the country, Kaslo, B.C. is home to about 1000 people who share isolation, a love of place - and a variety of competing interests related to local development. Like many other rural places, the citizens of Kaslo have no economic development staff and no organization with that mandate. Local development was largely the job of the Village Council and a number of voluntary organizations and informal groups. Each undertook its own projects as resources come available. Few communicated well with the others. There was no common understanding about how they might increase co-operation or about the local priorities on which they could work together.

CCE staff trained and assisted the people of Kaslo in the the Community Resilience process. It engaged a broader range of residents in thinking about their community, in the relationships between apparently isolated activities, and their need to get serious about planning Kaslo's future. As a result of that 3-month experience, citizens agreed that a community economic development plan was their town's top priority. Strong local understanding and support for that undertaking then enabled them to obtain the necessary funding. Today Kaslo and vicinity share a vision and a set of goals that will help them decide how to invest their human energy and financial resources over the next few years.

FIND OUT MORE

In addition to training and on-site consulting, the Centre for Community Enterprise offers distance support and research services to assist community revitalization. Contact Michelle Colussi to learn more about these services. The following documents also demonstrate our approach in some detail.

Available free of charge, in PDF:
The Community Resilience Manual
Tools & Techniques for Community Recovery & Renewal

Available from The CED Digital Bookshop:
Strategic Planning for the Community Economic Development Practitioner
Entrepreneurial Communities: A Handbook for Local Action