How can community organizers balance innovation and stability?

Prioritize organizational sustainability and stability then innovation. Innovation is risky, costly, and benefits rarely outweigh the risks.

Focus first on what is good about the community. What do people like about their community? The community is not all negatives. Show the balance by starting with community positives.

It's important in organising community to realise the need to use some professional tools in order to have firsthand information and data using Community Animation activity, Community Mapping, and Problem Tree analysis, using Focus Group Discussion (FGD), Semi-Structured Interview (SSIs) in identifying specific and generic areas the could require innovation and stability.

Community organizers balance innovation and stability by embracing new ideas while honoring tried-and-true methods. They listen to diverse voices, fostering a culture of adaptability and respect for tradition. This equilibrium enables communities to evolve gracefully, ensuring progress doesn't overshadow the foundational values that keep the community strong and united.

What is the primary value of your community to its members? If it's a second home, safeguard your people and relationships, first and foremost. Create predictability and repetition, which leads to a sense of stability. Innovate, but don't let it warp the vibe of your group.

Embracing a spirit of curiosity, I venture into the realm of experimentation and learning. Each new project becomes a laboratory where theories are tested and skills honed. This journey is filled with discoveries and insights, shaping me into a more knowledgeable and adaptable individual, ready for life's diverse challenges.

Sometimes the best experimenting and learning happens outside of your work. I asks a friend how he learned to use digital marketing for his recruiting company. He said he learned and experimented constantly with new marketing tools to promote his heavy metal band. Then he used the most successful ones at work.

While you're experimenting and testing, be sure to loop your community members into the conversation. If possible, share wireframes and betas to give insight into what you're thinking. The more you can involve the community early on, the better they'll receive the change long term.

Curiosity and adaptation are key. When something doesn’t work the way you expect, lean into the results with curiosity. If you remain open to learning and adapting based on what happens, however unexpected, you’ll find a path to the next right thing. As Janice Bryant Howard says “the result is the truth.”

As a community development practitioner, it is important to acknowledge that communities are diverse and constantly changing. This is due to various factors such as problems, resources, and community priorities. To effectively address these changes, it is crucial to involve the community in identifying and understanding the problems they face. By promoting collective reasoning, the community can work together to find solutions. It is also important to encourage community-driven initiatives to achieve success. In order to do this, the community should be engaged in every stage of the development process, from the initial idea to the final implementation.

Always involve community members in the activity planning and ideation process. And always communicate the changes and decisions in a timely manner so members can feel included in the process of change.

At its core, community organizing is about authenticity. If you're genuinely excited about what you're doing, others will join in. You work from the path you've walked.

Open and honest communication should be a no brainer. It astounds me how many “leaders” don’t understand this. People find it so refreshing when you are open and honest! We’re all human. Let’s not forget that!

To balance innovation and stability, community organizers should focus on transparent and consistent communication. This involves clearly explaining the purpose and process of initiatives, regularly sharing information and updates, and actively seeking input and feedback from the community. Addressing concerns and resistance head-on helps in building trust and rapport. By ensuring the community feels heard and involved, organizers can smoothly introduce innovative changes while maintaining a stable, supportive environment. This approach fosters buy-in and acceptance, crucial for successful and sustainable community development.

Being involved with the community and communicating our plans will give it a sense of ownership to all within the community. We can not be doing anything important and impactful to a people or community with out carrying them along and communicating your plans for the project to be a success.

Trust is crucial for your organization to innovate. Trust starts at the core with the integrity of your organization to its mission, vision and values. “Balanced” may be what successfully innovative organizations appear as on the outside, but balance is an illusion. Stability is a trust issue, once the members, the community, and your supporters trust your organization, you will be able to innovate, learn and adapt without fear of failure or rejection. Without trust, innovation will turn competitive, secretive, siloed and isolated. For successful, sustainable innovation organization members need to feel confident in the understanding, commitment, and support of their fellow members and the organization as a whole.

Balancing innovation and stability is a false goal that misguides the development of effective strategies. Innovation needs to be not be tamed to succeed in community organizing. This is not a fruitful discussion. Now more than ever people need to to organize to save our democracy, the environment, reproductive freedom and full access to healthcare, clean air, clean water and prevent climate change, preserve science and accurate history in schools and more. Now is the time to organize and get involved in the issues that you care about. Just do it.

embracing new ideas while honoring tried-and-true methods. They listen to diverse voices, fostering a culture of adaptability and respect for tradition.

If you have a group of community members as champions to discuss the ideas and initiatives before running it in the larger audience that will help you get the necessary feedback. This will also Give you an opportunity to understand their stories and get inspired at the same time.

Support is the constant phenomenal to seek in community organising, leveraging on the power of relationships building and networking which allows one to have a flawless information and data on the need assessment of a community.

Change is the only constant in life. While everyone craves change, it's important to remember that innovation is change, and change usually makes things harder before it makes things easier. When you're changing things that impact humans directly, you need to proactively plan how to communicate your innovations, how to involve your community, how to get feedback from your community, and finally it's important to have a rollback plan in case the innovation is premature, or doesn't help members. The more you plan and communicate, the better you'll be set up for success.

Before you start any major change process in your organisation, you need to take stock of where you are: who's on board already, who may have strong opposition to the change, what else might you need to consider that you might have missed in your planning process? Sometimes it's the things that are overlooked that cause the biggest problems: Where are you now? What's your starting point? Where are those who are going to be implementing the change (do they believe in the change?).

Never assume people understand what you are saying. Observe and clarify that your ideas have been successfully understood. Then when you start work everyone is on the same page.