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Strategies
Strategy 1 | Strategy 2 | Strategy 3 |Strategy 4 | Strategy 5 | Strategy 6
Strategy Four: Start with a Neighborhood Project
With Seattle's Neighborhood Matching Fund program, we've learned that projects - identified, planned, and carried out by neighbors - are excellent vehicles for getting people involved in neighborhood life. It's amazing to see how a simple project like planting street trees gets neighbors out of their homes and working side by side to make the neighborhood greener.
Projects also serve another purpose. They can result in creating community places where neighbors can meet and greet each other and find out what's going on in the neighborhood. These places take us past our own doorways into the shared life of community. A gathering place can be a bench, strategically placed at a spot well suited for neighborly conversation. Or it can be a playground full of accessible equipment that draws kids and parents from all over the neighborhood who are likely to interact because they're at the same place doing the same thing.
Using the Neighborhood Matching Fund, several groups have put their creativity to the test. Involving many neighbors, including people with disabilities, in the design of the project has resulted in community spaces that are welcoming and accessible to everyone in the neighborhood.
- A short-term project with tangible results is a good way to get involved and benefit the neighborhood.
- A neighborhood may want a particular project or some feature of it but still lack enough people willing to do the work to make it happen. It works best to find neighbors who commit to working on the project before a project gets started.
- Often there may be unknown or inexperienced community organizations with resources to mobilize on behalf of the community. Given ideas and resources, these organizations can accomplish impressive results in the community and gain recognition. These organizations may get better results by creating partnerships with more experienced community organizations.
- Almost never will every neighbor agree on how a project is best accomplished and how it should end up. But, always, it's important to consider everyone's input and suggestions and to work toward consensus. Respecting everyone's opinion and sharing decision-making power is essential to building community. When a project includes diverse interests, many people will be willing to work to help create it, and the entire neighborhood will benefit.
- Building a neighborhood place that relies on the interests and work of all neighbors creates the opportunity to bring together people of diverse backgrounds. Working together on a project develops relationships and the finished place in turn is a place where neighbors will continue to see each other to maintain these relationships and the entire neighborhood benefits.
Read more about people like Archie, Joyce, and Nannette who started with the help of a neighborhood project:
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