Broadening the understanding and ownership of the issue and its solutions among community members (individual and organizational).

Once we admit that none of us individually have all the answers, and that all of our decisions can affect the future of our community, then it becomes more apparent that “[e]verybody has a role in the learning and wisdom generating process.”i Vital, resilient communities create and sustain processes which engage a broad and diverse range of community members, recognizing that every member is both a source of knowledge as well as a potential decision maker who will affect the community’s future. “They seek new information and different ideas to add to the local mix of experience and wisdom” and “recognize everyone for their contribution.”ii

In addition to broadening the base of knowledge and experience in constructing potential solutions, the use of dialogue-based processes that engage the broadest range of community members have been effective at moving community members beyond their particular perception of the issue and its solution and towards collectively articulated core community values, principles, and desired outcomes. And when this is done through a process that engages rather than excludes, it moves the ownership of the problem and its solution from “them” to “us”.
i Allen B. Moore and Rusty Brooks, “Learning Communities and Community Development,” Learning Communities: International Journal of Adult and Vocational Learning, v. 1 (2000), p. 11
ii Moore and Brooks, p. 11

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