The purpose of this paper is provide examples of an innovative citizen engagement and participation model developed by Groundwork community non-profit trusts in the United States and show distinct elements of the model, including:
- Examples of improved outcomes: environmentally, socially and economically,
- Practical methods of inclusion, diversity and equity in the citizen engagement process, and
- Core practices that made the approach successful in these applications.
In sharing this approach, the Groundwork USA trust network (20 non-profit organizations) hopes to draw the interest of the academic public administration field in studying the model. In academics, field research is driven by a question and then hypothesis. This is a case where seasoned “practitioners” in community-based non-profits are experimenting and adapting in the field to community issues and problems, and have had major successes. They have no time to review the success, research relevant theory, and share the information—they are on to the next problems.
These case studies look at major projects in urban diverse and dis-invested neighborhoods that have environmental, economic and equity implications. Few environmental projects focus community attention as dramatically as those that seek to create (or retrieve) parks and trails along urban waterways. The Groundwork network has achieved significant success on such projects, including the Saw Mill River Daylighting Park in Yonkers, NY; the Spicket River Greenway in Lawrence, MA; and the Mill Creek Greenway in Cincinnati. They can be catalysts for neighborhood revitalization and, drivers of major economic re-development in distressed cities. Having a non-profit partner deeply involved in community engagement and environmental details was a boon for these cities. Groundwork trusts were the citizen engagement partner of the municipality. Groundwork approached the projects from the standpoint that plans that do not involve the whole community often lead to flawed designs and contentious public meetings—let alone do not ultimately serve the very public they are designed for.
“Open Government” and “Citizen Engagement” often has different meanings (and anxieties) for government (state, municipality, etc.) and citizens. We have tried in government to apply one model to everything and every need, so we designate task forces, citizen boards, advisory councils. These may become stale and/or contentious, only have people on them that can make the meetings, or people who are representing only one viewpoint.
Where government has explored “charrettes”—a group put together for a short-term public exercise around a topic, we then collapse them and have them go on their way when the “citizen input” has been given. Government seems to be afraid of real citizen input—that it won’t be realistic, doesn’t understand constraints, that it will be “wild.”
The Groundwork model is “grounded” in the communities in which we work; where the voices of the community are essential in actual collective decision-making and problem solving, and the engagement process produces long-lasting working relationships and trust-building between the citizens and their municipality.
Mitroff_Community_Engagement_Paper_for_irspm_2018.pdf 