This practical guide shows you what really does (and doesn't) contribute to community building success. It reveals 28 keys to help you build community more effectively and efficiently. You won't find another single report that pulls out common lessons from across community building initiatives about what works. You can use this report to find out what community characteristics contribute to successful community building, make sure key processes such as communications and technical assistance are in place, determine if community leaders or organizers have essential qualities such as a relationship of trust and flexibility, and evaluate the likely success of a proposed project or get a struggling effort back on track. Examples, definitions, and a detailed bibliography make this report even more valuable. Wilder Research Center scoured the literature, contacted resource centers, and spoke with community development experts across the country. The result is concrete, understandable research based on real-life experiences. The 28 factors in this report are grouped by: 1) characteristics of the community, 2) characteristics of the community building process, and 3) characteristics of community building organizers. Detailed descriptions and case examples of how each factor plays out are followed by practical questions you can use to assess your work. In addition to the factors, you also get working definitions for community, community building, and many other terms; a list of resources and contacts in the field; an explanation of how the research was done; and a complete bibliography of all the studies used in this report. Now you can save time looking for best-practice information. With this concise report, you've got the tools to help your community building work succeed!

Community Building: What Makes It Work: A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building

Business & Money

Wilder Research Center

Mattessich, Paul

Monsey, Barbara

Mattessich, Paul W.

Business Development & Entrepreneurship

Wilder Publishing Center

The Manager's Guide to Program Evaluation: Planning, Contracting, & Managing for Useful Results

Your Guide to Getting a Useful Evaluation Evaluation is vital and beneficial to any nonprofit organization. An effective evaluation can help identify an organization's successes, share information with key audiences, and improve services. It can confirm that an organization is truly making a difference. This book is for: organization managers and decision makers, policymakers, funders, researchers, and students studying applied social service research. Benefits you'll get: describes what types of information to collect and what questions this information can answer; details the four phases of evaluation and the steps involved in each phase; and information on various types of research consultants and advice selecting one.

Management & Leadership

Amherst H. Wilder Foundation

Don't Shelve that Evaluation! Use the Findings More Creatively and Effectively Traditional use of evaluation—for improving service quality—is well known. But are you using the data to full advantage? Information Gold Mine highlights 14 nonprofits that have used program evaluation in exciting, creative ways. You'll find five examples of using evaluation for improving services, five examples of influencing policy, and four examples of marketing a program. Written for non-technicians—service delivery practitioners, program designers, and managers—Information Gold Mine provides real examples and contains the ideas, suggestions, and actual words of your nonprofit colleagues. These are people who understand the realities of work in nonprofit and government service delivery organizations. You'll learn about specific changes organizations made based on evaluation findings; barriers they faced and how they overcame them; and practical advice including their most important learning and what would they have done differently. Plus, you'll find 15 key questions the authors advise you to answer if you want to improve services, 10 questions to answer if you want to influence policy and legislation, and 7 questions for marketing a program. Service providers have only scratched the surface when it comes to using evaluation information as a tool for public relations, educating consumers, influencing policy, and boosting staff morale. Information Gold Mine was written with the hope that the stories of these nonprofit will inspire more organizations to use program evaluation, as well as other forms of applied research, to accomplish tasks that will increase their strength and their impacts.

Information Gold Mine: Innovative Uses of Evaluation

Hendricks, Shelly

Roholt, Ross VeLure

Fieldstone Alliance

What makes the difference between your collaboration's failure or success? Collaboration: What Makes It Work, Second Edition answers this question with an up-to-date and in-depth review of collaboration research. This new edition also includes The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory.

Collaboration: What Makes It Work

Manager's Guide to Program Evaluation: 2nd Edition: Planning, Contracting, & Managing for Useful Results

Your Guide to Getting a Useful Evaluation, now updated and revised in this second edition. 
Evaluation is vital and beneficial to any nonprofit organization. An effective evaluation can help identify an organization's successes, share information with key audiences, and improve services. It can confirm that an organization is truly making a difference, or what changes an organization needs to make in order to improve. This book describes what types of information to collect and what questions this information can answer, details the four phases of evaluation and the steps involved in each phase, and provides information on various types of research consultants and advice on selecting one. If you are an organization manager, decision maker, policymaker, funder, researcher, or student studying applied social service research, this guide is an essential resource for your knowledge of effective organizational management.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mattessich, Paul W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mattessich, Paul W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mattessich, Paul W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Community Building: What Makes It Work: A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building

The Manager's Guide to Program Evaluation: Planning, Contracting, & Managing for Useful Results

Information Gold Mine: Innovative Uses of Evaluation

Collaboration: What Makes It Work

Community Building: What Makes It Work: A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building

The Manager's Guide to Program Evaluation: Planning, Contracting, & Managing for Useful Results

Manager's Guide to Program Evaluation: 2nd Edition: Planning, Contracting, & Managing for Useful Results