Solutions for America – Inventing Civic Solutions – A how-to guide on launching and sustaining successful community programs

Introduction

Finding solutions to tough community problems rarely follows a linear path. Rather, it is most often a blending of experimentation with knowl-edge garnered from research and practice. The resulting civic inventions are a unique product of trial-and-error.

Inventing Civic Solutions is an attempt to capture both the process and the context of proven community solutions. Each highlighted pro-gram was part of a national research initiative, Solutions for America, which set out to document the outcomes of existing efforts to solve some the nation’s most pressing challenges. Program staff and their research partner (usually a faculty member from an area college or uni-versity) teamed up to document the results of these programs. In this volume, we asked them to examine their solution from the vantage point of invention and related lessons. The writers hone in on the critical steps necessary to create and implement successful civic inventions—from understanding the challenge, to designing and launching the program, to keeping the program on track through measuring outcomes.

Community inventing is critical to finding new answers to old problems. These writers provide evidence of change based on vision, cre-ativity, and commitment. They have never given up. They represent the best in community work. Charles Kettering once described the difference between average citizens and inventors in this way: “Most people are interested in where they come from. Inventors are interested in where they are going.” We thank these writers for a very clear roadmap for future work.

Suzanne Morse

Full Report: http://www.pew-partnership.org/pdf/_inventing_solutions.pdf

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EFFECTIVE RURAL GOVERNANCE

According to a new paper from the Rural Policy Research Institute (RURPRI), effective rural governance builds on three major elements:

1) collaboration;

2) sustained citizen engagement; and

3) leveraging regional resources.

Eight case studies illustrate these points, including Jasper County, Missouri’s collaborative efforts to address a problem of lead contamination and a regional effort in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia to protect and promote the New River corridor.

Download Effective Rural Governance: What Is It? Does It Matter? at http://www.rupri.org/ruralPolicy/publications/RGI_in_pdf.pdf.