Goals are points of arrival that describe what change we want to see in our communities. To a great extent, they are like a wish list of how things should be. Goals are broad statements of intent, are non specific and usually non measurable, but they do point our actions in a certain direction. Outcomes describe what changes we expect to see by meeting our goals. Normally outcomes focus on changing knowledge, attitudes, skills or behaviors. Communities must develop the skills to identify short-term goals that lead to immediate results and success. This is to ensure that the community is motivated to continue working together for change. Nothing drives action better that experiencing previous success.
Although it is important to understand everything you strive to achieve, it is important to realize that achievement is most likely to occur with a gradual, phased-in approach to developing changes in your community. Communities need to walk before they run and experience small successes to develop a strong “Together we can do it” attitude. For this you need to develop some objectives. Objectives help break the journey to reaching a goal into manageable steps. Once you have your objectives, it is time to create your work plan. A work plan will include your activities, or the things you will do to complete your objectives. A work plan also a timeframe for completion of activities.
CARS Action Plan Tool Kit(PDF)
The CARS process uses Participatory Evaluation techniques. People learn at a very early age how to evaluate and then use the information we gather to make decisions, actions or changes in our life and in our world. We evaluate things like food, music, activities and community issues everyday. Sometimes the lessons learned result in small differences being made (listening or not listening to a certain kind of music) and other times the information we gather and the lessons we learn result in bigger changes in our life (joining a local movement to fight poverty in your community).
Measuring Success - Participatory Evaluation(PDF)
A learned reliance on government resources often takes us away from identifying broader community assets. We sometimes get stuck in the mire of government regulations, funding rules and/or mandates that are government directed instead of community developed. Sometimes communities focus only on their needs rather than the strengths or assets. This leaves the impression that local people are unable to take charge of their lives and their community’s future. This approach focuses on deficiencies in the community and results in fragmentation of responses to local needs. In the end this approach makes people dependent on services usually offering residents little participation into how local concerns will be addressed. Once participants and groups begin to work together , not only can they mobilize their own resources to support the common community vision, they learn to work together to build new resources and possibilities in their community.
Understanding Service Integration(PDF)
Community efforts work best when they are built on a foundation of community partnerships. Partnerships take a lot of time to develop and maintain. It takes time to develop trust and strong working relationships with “outsiders”. It is important to remember that people, not organizations, make partnerships. Organizations, and governments, create a supportive or non-supportive environment for the development of partnerships by virtue of their working policies and procedures. Partnerships are about shared power, however that power is rarely equal.
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