“It’s exhausting.”
That comment is stuck in my head. It came at the end of an email exchange with a leader of Environmental Justice Evanston (EJE), an elder, and veteran activist and community organizer. The exchange was about implementing progressive changes that come out of large-scale community listening efforts in Evanston.
She noted that, in her decades of experience, accountability for making the changes results only from the persistent watchdog and advocacy work of individual citizens and organizations (such EJE). It’s outside forces, not internal practices or leadership, that play the most significant role in manifesting change.
That may seem like a blinding glimpse of the obvious. Maybe it is. But it takes on a different level of obvious-ness for me. In part because of the source of the comment, a deeply experienced city change-maker who weaves intelligence and relationship-building skills into a powerful fabric.
But also because it points out a key difference between my professional work experience and the world of change in the civic context: The need to pay deep attention to the power dynamic between the city and citizens (individuals and groups).
I recognize – looking at this past month of posts – that I pay attention to within-the-organization challenges and practices. New value can be added there (I am getting positive feedback on that front).
The between-organization (city-citizen) challenges and practices are new to me. And it raises new questions to begin to explore.
Why should it be exhausting? What are the different roles that citizens and citizen groups play and the opportunities within each role? Where are the bright spots that move city-citizen to co-creation and shared power?
In the meantime, a few items from this past month.
In Notes on community, listening and humility, I call out one small example of a cool little practice to engage folks participating in a gathering. Another example occurred later in the month at a meeting hosted by a council member. Each of these stood out as bright spots – small positive actions. I am trying to tune into these examples, even knowing that these are well upstream from the desired change of executing a real co-created solution to some challenging issue in the community.
Example 1: The leaders of a meeting of the Reparations Authority stakeholders passed out notecards for attendees to write down their ideas on what the city’s reparations program might pursue next. Participants put their notecards into boxes labeled by topic (i.e., “wellness,” “education.” and “miscellaneous”). It was a small design hack to ensure 100% participation of folks who took the time to join the meeting.
Example 2: Evanston’s 4th Ward council member convened a community meeting to get more input on the Envision Evanston 2045, a long-term comprehensive plan that has evoked a lot of strong feelings. The council member convened the meeting using a World Cafe format. My colleagues and I have used this format in the past. Its structure nudges greater collaborative thinking and dialogue. And it is not a routine practice for Ward meetings.
In Have direction, let the dialogue go where it wants to go, and engage everyone. I pull together key guiding principles I use to design facilitated experiences and how I applied those to two recent opportunities. One was with Open Communities, a fair/open housing not-for-profit organization that works in Evanston and the northern suburbs.
I also revisited a key question in How do you know you are making progress toward inclusive community engagement? I am sure I will come back to this, but with a slightly different perspective that includes more about the city-citizen dynamic.
Because it is summer and the Chicago Cubs provide a tiny sliver of relief from all that’s going on: How baseball reminds us to pay attention to things that make us human.
Finally, a big welcome to a new change-maker: Diego Benjamin Merrell, born June 9 in Chicago. Currently only accepting work-from-home opportunities.
Jeff Merrell 