New Community Paradigms and More Belated Good Intentions

CommunityMatters, cited in the previous blog post, has also hosted a number of other organizations that are of interest to NCP but despite ‘good intentions’ have never been featured in either the blog or wiki up to this point. These newly found resources have now been placed under a variety of different NCP wiki-pages.

The greatest number of additions were under Governance through Community. The concept of Slow Democracy took the longest to be incorporated though it is arguably a necessary addition for New Community Paradigms to be viable, recognizing the difference between government administration and democratic governance.

"It describes how citizens around the country are breathing new life into their communities. Large institutions, centralized governments, and top-down thinking are no longer society’s drivers. New decision-making techniques are ensuring that local communities—and the citizens who live there—are uniquely suited to meet today’s challenges. In Slow Democracy, readers learn the stories of residents who gain community control of water systems and local forests, parents who find creative solutions to divisive and seemingly irreconcilable school-redistricting issues, and a host of other citizen-led actions that are reinvigorating local democracy and decision making."
Other new additions ranged from highly localized such as the Right Question Institute - A Catalyst for Microdemocracy.

“The robustness of the Right Question Strategy is demonstrated in how it is used to address such a wide range of challenges in so many communities around the country and the world and what happens when the RQ Strategy is taught to people who have never had the opportunity to learn to ask their own questions and focus on key decisions that affect them.”
Governance through Community is also home for Resident Learning Exchange featuring Resident-Centered Community Building:

“In June 2012, forty-one leaders of community building efforts came together to share strategies and discuss lessons they have learned about how to improve conditions in disadvantaged communities. While gatherings like these happen regularly, this one was unusual; it was designed by and for community residents.”
Other examples are much broader based.

The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement,

“The center is located in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science is dedicated to understanding communication processes and media technologies that facilitate positive citizen involvement in politics and social life through original research, new educational programs, policy recommendations, and Web-based citizen resources.”
The Journal of Public Deliberation | Public Deliberation

“(The) International Journal for Public Participation (2007 - 2010) merged with the Journal for Public Deliberation as a joint venture between DDC and IAP2 in November 2010. In announcing the joint venture in November 2010, IAP2 President Desley Renton said, ‘this initiative builds on the foundations of both journals and will extend the discourse in the field with readers benefiting from firsthand experience of public participation practitioners’.”
Newly placed under Community Places, the NCP wiki home for Project for Public Spaces (PPS), is the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking and its related blog, created to build capacity for sustainable and cost-effective creative placemaking, a new way of making communities more livable and prosperous through the arts. By going beyond public art and performing arts centers it is making them better places for not only the arts, it is making places better for everyone.

“Creative placemaking starts with building effective partnerships. Our approach to creative placemaking is based on six key elements: Building diverse and productive partnerships in communities and with local leadership to implement ideas. Enhancing quality of life for more people in communities Increasing economic opportunity for more stakeholders in communities Building healthier climates for creativity and cultural expression Engaging existing assets (both physical and human) as much as possible Promoting the best and distinct qualities of a place Our work is guided by the teachings of reflective practice, double-loop learning, asset-based community development, fifth level leadership, arts-based community development, communicative practice, environmental justice, and other current and cutting-edge philosophies of practice.”

There is a connection through the wiki-focus page, Community Design to Greater Places | The Community for Urban Design, a crowdsourced “How-To” manual for creating great communities – cities, suburbs and rural areas.

“Think of a Pinterest or Houzz for community design. WHAT IS COMMUNITY DESIGN? Community design is about people, the places we live, and the spaces we share. Community design is also about how we come together and make decisions that affect our communities and neighbors: from crossroads in the country to homeowners’ associations in the suburbs to new apartments in the city.”

There is also now a shared related wiki-page for Community Places and Community Design through Community Arts.

Under Innovation in Governance has been placed the Harvard - ASH Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and their Project on Social Innovation which provide a virtual knowledge hub for social innovation in cities and municipalities.

“Its purpose is to provide a practical platform for sharing the stories and lessons of exciting innovators from the nonprofit, philanthropic and public sectors. The Project on Social Innovation accomplishes this purpose through an innovator's toolkit, relevant news updates, profiles of best practices, regular blogging, and links to other online resources. The site is an initiative of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.”

Change Management and Processes is a newly created wiki-bridge page connecting Systems Thinking Applications and Organizational, Online and Technology Base  Community Change Agencies. These are the tools, processes, community algorithms that can be used by any community change agency, ranging from the organizational to the personal.

The Change Management Toolbook - Home

"Welcome to the Change Management Toolbook! This site has been around since 1997, and we remain focused on the founding vision of offering really useful and free change management content to our web visitors. This is the fourth (and we believe the best!) major revision of the website - it's a lot simpler and much prettier, and we think you will find that it is easier and quicker to get to the information you want. The changes are not limited to the "look and feel" - we've added some really good additional content, and we look forward to ongoing high-quality contributions by our growing global network of contributors."
The Process Arts site is “a living story of the process arts”.

"Processes can relate to the individual (such as meditation), interpersonal dynamics (for example Nonviolent Communication), group processes (e.g. Open Space, World Cafe, unconference and wiki), on up to very large scale systems, such as economic, legal and political structures (e.g. Threebles, Restorative Circles, or Citizen Deliberative Councils). Even more than a list of particular processes though, the process arts are about an awareness that however we are doing something, that is simply one particular way, and we can and often do experiment with doing it any number of other ways."
Finally, New America is an organization which asserts that it is dedicated to the renewal of American politics, prosperity, and purpose in the Digital Age.

“We carry out our mission as a nonprofit civic enterprise: an intellectual venture capital fund, think tank, technology laboratory, public forum, and media platform. Our hallmarks are big ideas, impartial analysis, pragmatic policy solutions, technological innovation, next generation politics, and creative engagement with broad audiences.”