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Yalinetwork Enugu /Ebonyi Member Kelechi/ Community Organising for Action

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Yalinetwork Enugu /Ebonyi Member Kelechi/ Community Organising for Action

A strong body of volunteers can make the difference between success and failure.

Learn how to recruit and retain volunteers who are committed to your organization’s mission.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Creating a Successful Grassroots Campaign

Be as specific as possible in your delegation. Some examples of duties that may need to be filled include media relations, social media engagement, government or university liaison, advertising, etc.

Every person must have a detailed summary of their roles that should be shared with everyone on the team. Once this is done and everyone is working with their respective assignments, you can begin the process of launching your campaign!

To build a sustainable grassroots campaign, everyone must know their roles and have clearly defined ways that they can contribute. Leaders who try to take on too many responsibilities will be building a campaign of one, not of many. To be successful, you must trust your team and have specific SMART goals that can be repeated for long-term success.

After you’ve completed all the units in this course at yali.state.gov, you can test your knowledge and earn a YALI Network certificate.

[TEXT: Test Your Knowledge YALI.state.gov]

[TEXT: YALINetwork Produced by the U.S. Department of State]

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Creating a Successful Grassroots Campaign

After this ideas-sharing session, choose, by vote, the topic you are going to focus on. Make sure that the goals and timeline of your program are SMART. Smart stands for Strategic, Measurable,

Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

Once you do this, you must identify stakeholders. Stakeholders are people or organizations that you believe will support your cause. If you recognize early on institutions or people who may be against you, the chances of you being able to figure out ways to work with them positively will increase.

Also note that some stakeholders who may support you could also work against you if you do not approach them properly. For example, if you identify university professors as potential stakeholders, they may join your cause because they want to teach students. However, if you are asking them to volunteer and cover their own costs for the training, they may choose not to support your efforts. Try to think of as many scenarios as possible in your search for allies and create a strategic plan for engaging each one. Once you do this, you are able to move on to…
Step 3: Developing a step-by-step plan of action to build a sustainable campaign.

What you need to do in this step is solidify the date or dates that you plan to have your activities.

Before you create the timeline of events, you absolutely must delegate responsibilities to your team.

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is trying to do everything on their own. Delegating responsibilities is a good way to hold everyone on your team accountable.
Be as specific as possible in your delegation. Some examples of duties that may need to be filled include media relations, social media engagement, government or university liaison, advertising, etc.

Every person must have a detailed summary of their roles that should be shared with everyone on the team.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Creating a Successful Grassroots Campaign

TEXT: Learning Objectives:

1. How to strategically identify challenges.

2. How to understand and incorporate stakeholders.

3. How to develop a plan of action to build a sustainable campaign.]

In this lesson, we’ll learn how to strategically identify challenges that need to be addressed, how to understand and incorporate important stakeholders in a campaign and how to develop a step-by-step plan of action to build a sustainable campaign.

Creating a successful grassroots campaign does not happen by accident. It requires serious and active action planning on the part of the leaders of the campaign.

Step 1: Strategically identify challenges that need to be addressed.

Your team cannot address every single challenge facing your community. Therefore, it makes the most sense to sit down with your team and identify one specific issue that you are going to target.

Ask what topic, issue or theme do you want to work to change? If you’re wanting to address unemployment in your community, for example, three problems could be lack of available jobs in your community, lack of training for the available jobs or lack of transportation to get potential workers to the jobs. While all three of these issues are worthy of your attention, you must pick one to channel your efforts towards.
Step 2: Brainstorming ideas for the project and incorporating important stakeholders into your campaign.

Amongst your leadership team, you should now begin to come up with creative ideas to address your issue. Every idea at this point should be welcomed. Ideas can range from having training weekends where professionals come and volunteer their services (or are paid a stipend if you find the right funding partner) to partnering with the local university to provide language classes, if language barriers are one of the obstacles for members of your community to gain employment.

17/03/2021

They can mobilize others to get involved, speak out and take action.

Think of community engagement as an investment in the NGO’s future. By building the capacity of the people you serve to be more involved in efforts to improve the community, you might just find your next capable staff members, volunteers, board members, even donors to your organization.

NGOs are humanitarian in nature, but they also can be empowerment organizations that facilitate the ability of people to realize their own visions for better lives and communities.
Now that you’ve completed the course, please visit yali.state.gov to take the quiz. This will help you test your knowledge and earn credit towards a special certificate.
TEXT: Test Your Knowledge YALI Network]

[TEXT: YALINetwork Produced by the U.S. Department of State]

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Engaging Your Community

That’s a great start, and you can take that one step further.

Consider creating a community advisory committee that meets regularly to provide input feedback on project plans and progress. A group like this can be a bridge between the NGO and the community, bringing valuable insights to your NGO and serving as champions of the project in the community. Take time to learn more about members of the community you serve — both those who participate in your projects and their families, friends and neighbors.
In addition to doing a community needs assessment, you can also conduct a community “assets” assessment. Through surveys, focus groups or community meetings, ask people what they know and what they know how to do. You’ll find people with all kinds of knowledge, skills and experience they can contribute. For example, if someone likes to talk to their neighbors, they might be just the right person to help you carry out a survey or join your project advisory committee.
When the people you serve are involved in your NGO, your NGO will be more successful.
Not only will your projects be more relevant to their needs, but you’ll build collective ownership of your NGO’s mission. Your community members will be more willing to support your NGO and its work in the future. When NGOs don’t engage community members as partners, you miss opportunities to develop the assets that exist right in your own backyard.
Over time, you can invest in building the skills of community members who are most engaged and provide them with opportunities to step into leadership roles. By cultivating new leaders, you expand the pool of talent to help you carry out the mission and ensure that your NGO’s work will go on long after the founders are gone.
The leaders you cultivate can amplify your NGO’s work in any number of ways. They can educate others in the community about the issues. They can serve as messengers in public education campaigns.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Engaging Your Community

TEXT: CIVIC LEADERSHIP ENGAGING YOUR COMMUNITY]

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Understand what community engagement is and why it’s important.

2. Become familiar with different ways an NGO can foster community engagement.

3. Learn the benefits and challenges of community engagement.

In this lesson, you’ll gain an understanding of what community engagement is, and why it’s important, become familiar with different ways an NGO can foster community engagement, and learn some of the benefits and challenges.
In this lesson, you’ll gain an understanding of what community engagement is, and why it’s important, become familiar with different ways an NGO can foster community engagement, and learn some of the benefits and challenges.

NGOs exist to serve the public good — to make people’s lives better and communities stronger. Too often, we think of community members only as people in need of our help.Community engagement is about involving the people you serve, not just as beneficiaries of your projects, but as partners in accomplishing your mission.

Almost everyone — young or old, rich or poor, with or without formal education — has something they can contribute to an NGO’s work. Some might have special knowledge or a unique skill to offer. Others might have the means to donate money, materials or supplies.
Others still can give their time and bring their enthusiasm.

When people are actively engaged in efforts to improve their own lives and their neighbors’ lives, they become more aware of and committed to solving problems. They also learn new skills and gain confidence in their ability to effect change. In short, engagement is empowering.

So how can an NGO actually practice community engagement?

You can start by involving community members in your projects. You might already conduct some sort of needs assessment where you ask, through surveys or focus groups, your target population about their needs.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Inspiring Community Participation

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 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 to solve problems. Invest your time and energy into inspiring community participation, and I know you’ll be amazed by what’s possible!

After you’ve completed all the units in this course at YALI.state.gov, you can test your knowledge and earn a YALI network certificate.

[TEXT: Test your knowledge YALI.State.gov]

[TEXT: YALINetwork Produced by the U.S. Department of State]

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Inspiring Community Participation

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, 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. 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 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 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. 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 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.
Once you’ve inspired the community members to act, your next task is to maintain that momentum, keep them motivated. 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, to show people that they are making a difference.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Inspiring Community Participation

[TEXT: Learning Objectives

1. Why it’s important to know your community and its needs.

2. How to overcome apathy or lack of interest.

3. How to build and maintain momentum.]

In this lesson we will learn: why it’s important for you to know your community and its needs before you inspire them to act; how to overcome apathy or lack of interest from community members; and how to build and maintain momentum once you’ve started a project.
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? 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. People are inspired to act when there’s a clear vision and they believe you have a plan of action. Do your homework; come up with a plan that 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! There are many reasons why community members choose not to participate. For example, there can be personal barriers. People may feel they lack the skills or knowledge to make a difference. Or, there’s a 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 and their motivations. You can trigger these motivations to create a personal link between the community member you want to engage and the issue you’re trying to address.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Attracting and Motivating Volunteers

Make sure your advertising conveys accurately the volunteer experience, and that it highlights the aspects you know will be attractive to people.

How to keep volunteers motivated. It is important to make sure your volunteers’ time is well spent while they are working at your organization. Remember that they may not be as experienced as your full- or part-time staff members. For that reason, make sure to be available to answer their questions, provide support, extra training, and encouragement. Take time to teach them about the impact your organization is making, so they feel a connection to the work they are doing. Providing a positive experience for your volunteers and keeping them engaged during their service is key to making sure they come back and work with you again in the future.

How to keep your volunteers engaged. After the volunteers’ time is over, talk with them about what they liked, and what they didn’t like. Collect their feedback by giving them a survey. Work hard to learn from the negative comments so that in the future, the volunteer experience can continue to improve. Once a person has volunteered with your organization, work hard to keep them engaged.
Keep them on your mailing list. Invite them to volunteer in the future. Encourage them to invite their friends to the next events.

Volunteers are an invaluable resource. Working hard to attract volunteers, and motivating them to want to serve with your organization, can help it grow and have a greater impact.

17/03/2021

Community Organizing for Action

Attracting and Motivating Volunteers

TEXT: Learning Objectives

1. How to motivate volunteers to join.

2. How to create a fulfilling and positive volunteer experience.

3. How to collect feedback.

4. How to keep the volunteers engaged.]

In this lesson, we will discuss how to motivate volunteers to join. We’ll explore how to create a fulfilling and positive volunteer experience; then how to collect feedback so you can make improvements and see what you’re doing well; and finally, how to keep the volunteers engaged after they’ve been with your organization.
Why do our organizations need volunteers? Volunteers help our organizations make an even bigger impact. Many of our institutions simply wouldn’t be able to survive without the support that volunteers provide.

In order to attract people who are willing to invest their time, we have to first learn what inspires them to serve with us. What are they hoping to accomplish? Once we know their expectations, we must live up to them or risk losing our volunteers.

How to attract volunteers. I believe it’s in our DNA to want to help others. Some people come forward right away, ready to give. For others, it takes a bit more coaxing. It is important to create a volunteer experience that is meaningful. And demonstrating the impact a volunteer can make is the first step in attracting quality people. Work hard to create a positive environment so that people want to join the team!
Once you know what kind of participation you’re able to provide, begin seeking out volunteers. What avenues of communication does your institution have at its disposal? Can you use social media, and seek out volunteers on Twitter or Facebook? You can send out a monthly newsletter in which you can advertise for volunteers. Or you can create fliers and hang them on community boards in your neighborhood. Reach out for people who have volunteered with your organization in the past.

Address

Enugu

Telephone

+2348134874424

Website

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