Community Mobilization / Coalition Building

Brief description of topic: Community mobilization/coalition building is essentially people coming together to address an issue in order to achieve community level change.

The basic assumptions fundamental to community mobilization are:

1. Local people, equipped with current prevention knowledge and skills, are in the best position to solve local problems.
2. People support what they help create.
3. All facets of a community must be involved.
4. There is no one strategy or initiative that can create the desired conditions.
5. A comprehensive, inclusive, developmentally sound plan is needed as a foundation.
6. Accountability, assessment and evaluation are essential for success. Community Mobilization for Prevention – Southwest Prevention Center – http://swpc.ou.edu

Getting Started Workbook

To help communities with community mobilization and coalition building we have created the Getting Started workbook. We have attempted to provide a very comprehensive resource for this very important process. Up front planning is especially valuable when you are working collaboratively with multiple stakeholders in developing a comprehensive strategic plan or working on achieving community-level change. Our instinct is often to forge ahead and “get something done” and is not uncommon to question the need for all the planning, meetings, and process-focused work. Having said that, the time you take up front to preplan and get key players participating from the outset will pay off exponentially when you get to the “action” phases.

Getting Started Workbook

This Getting Started workbook is very comprehensive and best completed in sequence. Depending on your community, you may already have some of these components in place. In that case it is simple enough to just make note of that and move on to the next step.

Listed below are the main sections found in the workbook. For the complete workbook and corresponding tools please download the Getting Started workbook.

Workbook Sections

• Strategy I: Identify Coalition Coordinator/Facilitator
• Strategy II: Form a Core Work Group
• Strategy III: Inventory Existing Community Services
• Strategy IV: Engage Key Coalition Member
• Strategy V: Community Change Process and Timeline
• Strategy VI: Preparation for Initial Coalition Meeting

Coalition Assessment
This assessment was designed to assess key factors that influence your coalition’s success. The tool includes the following dimensions: coalition context, coalition structure, coalition membership, coalition process, and coalition results.

Coalition Assessment Tool-Brief

Coalition Assessment Toolkit Brief

Coalition Assessment Brief

Quality Process Survey

This survey was designed to assess the overall quality of communities’ collaborative process. "Process" refers to how a group of people is working together to achieve goals and to address issues. Four critical aspects of collaboration are: a focus, inclusivity, a constructive process, and the presence of strong facilitative leaders. It is important to remember that collaboration is more than just a tool. When collaboration works, it reproduces and builds the characteristics of civic community, allowing communities to deal with future issues in constructive ways.

Quality Process Survey

Process Quality Survey Data Entry Template

Quality Survey Manual

We highly recommend contacting your local RPC for the most effective use of the Getting Started workbook. Contact Your RPC