What is Community Building?

Index by Content Type

Practical

• Building Stronger Communities Resources
  - The Department for Victorian Communities provides online community building and strengthening resources.
• Child and Family Community Development for Mainstream and Vulnerable Communities – A How to Guide
  - This report was produced by the Illawarra Child and Family Community Development project with practice contributions over the years from a number of community development officers.
• Community Building - Definitions and Websites
  - Community building is about people from the community, government and business taking the steps to find solutions to issues within their communities.
• Community Building Through Intergenerational Exchange Programs Report
  - The ‘Community Building through Intergenerational Exchange Programs’ research project was commissioned by the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme (NYARS) to explore the concept of intergenerational exchange as a vehicle for community building, particularly in Australia.
• Community Capacity Building Programs And Approaches
  - Presentation notes by Gary Moore, NSW Premier’s Department, for NSW Health Promotion Director’s Forum, 19 Feb 2002
• Community Development online practice and presentations from the Bank of I.D.E.A.S.
  - Resources on Community Development from the Bank of I.D.E.A.S. include handouts, power point presentations and an online bookshop.
• Community Development publications - Dr. Jim Cavaye
  - These publications cover a range of subjects including measuring social capital,community capacity building, building social capital in rural and regional communities, small town renewal, in the Australian context.
• Development Gateway
  - An interactive site that brings together people, resources, and information on development and poverty reduction.
• Housing for Communities
  - The communitybuilders.nsw website is about community development. Information on physical buildings and housing for communities can be obtained from organisations suggested in this article.
• Ideas from the Community Capacity Building Forum - Nowra NSW
  - An interesting collection of notes, ideas and charts from the Community Capacity Building Forum held at Nowra in 2003.
• Measuring Social Capital in Five Communities in NSW
  - A study by Paul Bullen and Jenny Onyx.
• Positive Futures
  - Peter Kenyon discusses 8 actions for effective community and economic development.
• Practical Questions for Community Builders
  - This list of questions has been developed to assess success factors in community building.
• Promoting Social Capital - Martin Stewart-Weeks
  - The resurgent interest in social capital, civil society and the social dimension of sustainable prosperity is capturing a significant vantage point on the public policy landscape and in broader, popular debate.
• Small NGOs Moving Forward - forum proceedings
  - The proceedings of a Community Forum, "Small Non Government Organisations Moving Forward - Common Goals, Models, Collaborative Partnerships and Action", which was held on November 7, 2002 at Nirimba College of TAFE.

Case Studies

• A review of communitybuilders.nsw – Report, June 2004
  - This review commissioned by Director General of the NSW Premier’s Department, was mandated to assess performance of communitybuilders.nsw across five linked areas: objectives and results; strategic directions; auspice and governance; website content, design and performance; and capacity and budget.
• Best Practice Briefs in Human Services
  - Current information on human services policies, programs, concepts, processes, models and tools.
• Empowering Grass-Roots Groups to Strengthen Communities
  - Building stronger communities through empowering community groups.
• Governing from the Verandah: the communitybuilders.nsw discussion forum as platform for social government – Richard J Stella, 2003
  - This thesis examines the way in which the communitybuilders.nsw forum is used and locates it within an emergent political settlement of ‘governing through community'.

Related Reading

• "Communities of Hope " - community capacity building by Wayne McCashen
  - This book gives a step-by-step blue-print for a ‘strengths-based’ approach to community capacity building, as developed by St Luke’s Anglicare (Bendigo, Australia).
• A Question of Balance: Reflections on the Public Sector
  - This paper overviews the literature on multi-agency approaches to delivering government services, arguing the need to appraise the risks and costs as well as the benefits of whole of government approaches.
• Achieving Sustainable Development: The Integrative Improvement Institutes™ Project
  - The Integrative Improvement Institutes™ Project is designed to improve the well-being of people and their physical, social and cultural environments through low-cost adaptive diffusion, refinement and implementation of a unique bottom-up Integrative Improvement™ approach for achieving sustainable development.
• Bettertogether
  - Report of the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement in America, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA: 2000)
• Bowling Alone: America's declining social capital, by Robert Putnam
  - In this much discussed article, Robert Putnam looks at the erosion of social capital - how society has become increasingly disconnected from friends, neighbours, community and democratic processes - and what may be done to re-connect it.
• Communities, Social Capital and Public Policy: Literature Review
  - This review explores the meaning and relevance of community and social capital drawing on a wide range of disciplines, in particular economics.
• Community Building Coming of Age
  - This monograph (May 1997) by James O. Gibson, G. Thomas Kingsley and Joseph B. McNeely discusses the community building approach to address the problems and opportunities of both impoverished inner-city neighborhoods and rural areas.
• Government, the Third Sector and the Rise of Social Capital
  - John Butcher, from the Centre for Research in Public Sector Management asks whether social capital is set to emerge as a major theme in public policy at the national level and the implications for third sector (non-Government) organisations participating in newly contestable markets for health, labour market and community services.
• Neighbourhood Renewal
  - Neighbourhood Renewal is a long-term commitment by the Victorian State Government to narrow the gap between disadvantaged communities and the rest of the State.
• Social Capital: Reviewing the Concept and its Policy Implications
  - This research paper released by the Productivity Commission in July 2003, reports evidence confirming that social capital generally brings economic as well as social benefits, while noting that it can sometimes have perverse effects.
• Study of the Nonprofit Sector in New Zealand
  - This is a collaborative project between government, voluntary sector and academic representatives to measure the size and scope of New Zealand’s non-profit sector.
• The Bank of I.D.E.A.S. inspires this site