Real Communities
GCDD Vision
The purpose of the Real Communities Initiative is to connect people with developmental disabilities and their organizations to other citizens and their associations to act collectively on community issues while being guided by Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) principles and GCDD values to achieve four major results:
Create real positive changes that improve life in the community for all, based on a thoughtful and well informed answer to the question, What does our community need from us?
Build strong bridges to community associations, leaders, and alliances that reach outside the boundaries of disability so that a wider network benefits from the energy and gifts of people with developmental disabilities and their families, so that people with disabilities will have more people to count on.
Create a sustainable model of community-based family support that is based on collaboration and Asset Based Community Development which appropriately addresses the needs of un-served or underserved families with developmental disabilities inclusive with their non-disabled community partners.
Learn about how to make real changes in a way that moves from “me” to “we” and creates a great awakening to the assets that every community has.
Sets of Practices to Build Real Communities
We are Person Centered: We are dedicated in finding ways to provide individualized supports, directed by the person and allies, that assist the person in having valued roles in community life and build more inclusive community settings.
We are Community Centered: We are dedicated to build associations and alliances that allow citizens to make productive connections around what they care about, mobilize existing community assets, and make those assets productive by taking part in meaningful action.
We take part in Purposeful Learning: We are dedicated to generating social innovation through a reflective learning process.
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)
(The following information is provided by Mike Green of the ABCD Institute www.mike-green.org)
Asset Based Community Development is about local people working together for the well being of their home place. ABCD is primarily relationship building for action for a collective purpose, a path to organize groups and people in a community to act together for the common good. The focus is upon building power (the ability to act effectively) through relationships.
How is this done?
ABCD is an approach to discover local community assets. This mapping is mostly what people do in the name of ABCD.
Second and more importantly ABCD is “practices and principles” for mobilizing a local community to move into action with residents at the center… not outsiders. The community is the principal actor not the client. ABCD is a path to “organize an organization” or community partnership of local people and their stakeholder groups to find, connect, and make productive a growing circle of local assets working for the common good.
How do you mobilize a community through relationships?
Discover what people care about enough to act on in your local community. What will people commit to act on? Discover ‘motivation to act’ through learning conversations out in the community. What is the motivation to act? What is the collective purpose that a wide circle of people will act on together? Who is committed to act?
Find and engage specific connector leaders (people who are leaders in a community sense meaning people with trust, influence, and a circle of relationships to call upon) to form a connector leaders group. This is the core group for collective action that can use their connections and relationships to engage a wide circle of the local community working together. ABCD is community organizing; principles and practices to bring people into committed relationship for collective action towards what people really care about–enough to act.
Community development that works best is not about manufacturing anything, but about bringing out the basic goodness that is there in each local community. Every community is a place filled with gifts to be given and care to be discovered. The song of community is,” We need you. We need you. Join us.” There is no one we don’t need.
How the Council supports Real Communities projects:
It is the goal of each Real Communities project to have a local Community Builder whose role is to build the group, support implementation of the work, and create sustainability and accountability. Successful community builders work toward the goals of empowerment – helping people mobilize, obtain resources, and develop strategies that promote their interests or causes.
We support the training and development of each local Community Builder via couching and mentoring by Council staff and Real Communities consultants. We also provide community builders with regular training and learning opportunities to sharpen skills and add new tools to their organizational toolboxes.
We provide ABCD training opportunities for members of each local Real Communities project.
We work with local projects to create an evaluation plan that works for their unique project and local environment. Each community defines what success means to them and create steps to reach those goals.
We provide opportunities for Community Builders and local groups to take part in “learning journeys.” These journeys give groups an opportunity to travel to places where innovative community work is happening, so they can learn on the ground and do participatory research on what might work for them. We feel this process helps to avoid “recreating the wheel.”
Real Communities includes an ongoing Learning Circle of local community initiatives and committed community members in Georgia who want to learn together about building more inclusive welcoming communities where people with disabilities have good lives as contributing community members. The Learning Circle seeks to intentionally cultivate innovation and creativity in practical terms by letting go of old ideas, reflecting on our new experiences, and experimenting with new action approaches. The Learning Circle is a container to hold the organizing and learning components of Real Communities. It will be an ever evolving process as we learn together and from each other. We seek to be a trusting circle of support where each of us can share our insights and our success, as well as our confusion and challenges. We are ‘creating the road as we walk it’ towards more welcoming communities where people with developmental disabilities are valued members.
Download the GCDD Real Communities Initiating Group (656KB PDF)
Download the GCDD Setting Out Real Communities Retreat (3.7MB PDF)
Council Supported Projects
Fitzgerald
Located in south central Georgia, Fitzgerald and the surrounding Ben Hill County area is a small rural community. In 2008, Ben Hill County had a poverty rate of 23.2%. Locally, residents have been organizing around the issue of transportation for nearly two years, and in the past year have been working with the GCDD as part of Real Communities. The core organizing group in Fitzgerald consists of everyday citizens with and without developmental disabilities; family members of people with developmental disabilities; representatives from People First of Fitzgerald; the Jessamine Place (local service provider); East Central Technical College; the city of Fitzgerald; and Ben Hill County, among others.
In Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County, there are very few options for transportation outside of privately owned vehicles. This greatly limits opportunities for recreation and social activities, medical access, educational and employment opportunities, as well as everyday errands a resident may have. In the past year, one individual using a wheelchair was killed by a motorist while trying to travel on a street with no sidewalks. The issue of transportation impacts all who live in the area, regardless of disability. The core group is particularly interested in community-based responses to transportation. Models currently being explored include formalized ride share and carpool programs, transportation co-ops, church van co-ops, and time banks.
In July 2010, Ben Hill County and the City of Fitzgerald successfully passed a Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) which includes $250,000 specifically earmarked to provide seed funding for community-based transportation models being explored as part of the Real Communities Initiative.
Korean Coalition
This group was initially formed in response to a needs assessment done by the Center for Pan Asian Community Services via an innovative grant from the GCDD. The Korean Coalition is in the beginning stages of forming an organization of Korean families who have family members with disabilities. In our purposeful learning process, we have seen that often starting as a family group can be a powerful and empowering first step in building a group to act in the larger community. Once parents have the opportunity to connect with others facing similar barriers, access basic services, and build some strength as a smaller group, they are better able to reach out to the larger community. As parents see the limitations of disability-only groups, the appeal of widening the lens to the entire community becomes more clear and apparent.
Community Action Pioneers of Gwinnett
The Community Action Pioneers of Gwinnett (or CAP) was formed in 2008. The organization is made up of Gwinnett County residents who are graduates of the Partners in Policymaking program and are all parents of children with developmental disabilities. Their beginning activities were focused on systems change and advocacy work, as well as a small project reaching out to a local religious congregation around accessibility. In recent months they have begun to explore the use of ABCD as a part of Real Communities. The group is interested in exploring human service co-operatives, life sharing and other alternative co-operative arrangements that allow adults with developmental disabilities live and participate in integrated settings in their communities. Visit their website at https://sites.google.com/site/communityactionpioneers/ for more information.
City of Milton
The City of Milton is located in North Fulton County in the metro Atlanta area. Milton is a new city, formed at the end of 2006. Since its inception, the City of Milton has been extremely dedicated and intentional in ensuring accessibility and providing opportunities to involve residents with disabilities. When the city was founded, the Milton Disability Awareness Committee (MDAC) was created as an official committee of the City Council. MDAC has worked with City personnel to ensure they are familiar with the American with Disabilities Act, have a basic level of awareness of issues impacting people with disabilities and have also worked to reach out and educate the larger community.
The GCDD is currently working with MDAC and the City of Milton as part of Real Communities to ensure Milton is truly welcoming to all who live there and to provide opportunities for citizen engagement and involvement in community. We are currently working to develop a mini-grant program that would be administered by the City of Milton. The purpose of these mini-grants is to provide neighborhood groups and residents with resources to create community-driven projects that enhance and strengthen local community life, build avenues towards civic engagement and create avenues for the full participation of all residents, specifically those typically left out of community life. All projects are initiated, planned and implemented by local residents. Mini-grants support neighborhood improvements, promote neighborhood associations and fund projects that bring community members together and create avenues for inclusion. Engaged and connected residents are the greatest asset in any given community. By allowing residents to actively engage in improving their communities and making them more welcoming for everyone, we see great things emerge and a new relationship develop between residents and local government.
Additionally, Milton’s Community Builder has been working hard to develop a citizen-led group to build relationships and use Asset Based Community Development to improve the City of Milton for everyone who lives there.
Centenary United Methodist Church
Located in College Hill Corridor in down Macon, GA Centenary Church was founded in 1884. Until the 1980s, the neighborhood and congregation of the church was mostly affluent and Caucasian. By the 1990s, the neighborhood was mostly African American and extremely impoverished. The congregation’s number dwindled. It became clear that both the church and neighborhood would not survive unless major changes were made. In 2005, the church began to work actively to reach out to and engage the surrounding neighborhood. The congregation is now extremely diverse and dedicated to addressing the concerns of the community in long-term and sustainable ways. The diversity of the congregation is something Centenary not only embraces, but is proud of.
Centenary has a Minster of Community Building on staff, has started a community garden, has a transitional housing program for men, a microloan program, support and house a summer camp for youth whose parents are incarcerated, in addition to other programs that actively support the community and address root causes as opposed to providing temporary band-aid type relief. Recently Centenary has been involved in a large effort to open a food co-operative in the College Hill Corridor of Macon.
The GCDD is exploring collaboration opportunities with Centenary as part of Real Communities. Centenary is very interested in exploring ways to welcome people with disabilities and their families into the congregation and offer opportunities for them to contribute.
Real Homes »
Real Careers »
Real Learning »
Real Support »
Real Influence »
Other Partners and Resources
Video Interview with Professor John McKnight: Capacity Building Beyond Community Services
Mike Green
Centenary Church
The City of Milton
ABCD Institute
Inclusion Press
Community Activators
Real Communities
GCDD Vision
The purpose of the Real Communities Initiative is to connect people with developmental disabilities and their organizations to other citizens and their associations to act collectively on community issues while being guided by Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) principles and GCDD values to achieve four major results:
Create real positive changes that improve life in the community for all, based on a thoughtful and well informed answer to the question, What does our community need from us?
Build strong bridges to community associations, leaders, and alliances that reach outside the boundaries of disability so that a wider network benefits from the energy and gifts of people with developmental disabilities and their families, so that people with disabilities will have more people to count on.
Create a sustainable model of community-based family support that is based on collaboration and Asset Based Community Development which appropriately addresses the needs of un-served or underserved families with developmental disabilities inclusive with their non-disabled community partners.
Learn about how to make real changes in a way that moves from “me” to “we” and creates a great awakening to the assets that every community has.
Sets of Practices to Build Real Communities
We are Person Centered: We are dedicated in finding ways to provide individualized supports, directed by the person and allies, that assist the person in having valued roles in community life and build more inclusive community settings.
We are Community Centered: We are dedicated to build associations and alliances that allow citizens to make productive connections around what they care about, mobilize existing community assets, and make those assets productive by taking part in meaningful action.
We take part in Purposeful Learning: We are dedicated to generating social innovation through a reflective learning process.
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)
(The following information is provided by Mike Green of the ABCD Institute www.mike-green.org)
Asset Based Community Development is about local people working together for the well being of their home place. ABCD is primarily relationship building for action for a collective purpose, a path to organize groups and people in a community to act together for the common good. The focus is upon building power (the ability to act effectively) through relationships.
How is this done?
ABCD is an approach to discover local community assets. This mapping is mostly what people do in the name of ABCD.
Second and more importantly ABCD is “practices and principles” for mobilizing a local community to move into action with residents at the center… not outsiders. The community is the principal actor not the client. ABCD is a path to “organize an organization” or community partnership of local people and their stakeholder groups to find, connect, and make productive a growing circle of local assets working for the common good.
How do you mobilize a community through relationships?
Discover what people care about enough to act on in your local community. What will people commit to act on? Discover ‘motivation to act’ through learning conversations out in the community. What is the motivation to act? What is the collective purpose that a wide circle of people will act on together? Who is committed to act?
Find and engage specific connector leaders (people who are leaders in a community sense meaning people with trust, influence, and a circle of relationships to call upon) to form a connector leaders group. This is the core group for collective action that can use their connections and relationships to engage a wide circle of the local community working together. ABCD is community organizing; principles and practices to bring people into committed relationship for collective action towards what people really care about–enough to act.
Community development that works best is not about manufacturing anything, but about bringing out the basic goodness that is there in each local community. Every community is a place filled with gifts to be given and care to be discovered. The song of community is,” We need you. We need you. Join us.” There is no one we don’t need.
How the Council supports Real Communities projects:
It is the goal of each Real Communities project to have a local Community Builder whose role is to build the group, support implementation of the work, and create sustainability and accountability. Successful community builders work toward the goals of empowerment – helping people mobilize, obtain resources, and develop strategies that promote their interests or causes.
We support the training and development of each local Community Builder via couching and mentoring by Council staff and Real Communities consultants. We also provide community builders with regular training and learning opportunities to sharpen skills and add new tools to their organizational toolboxes.
We provide ABCD training opportunities for members of each local Real Communities project.
We work with local projects to create an evaluation plan that works for their unique project and local environment. Each community defines what success means to them and create steps to reach those goals.
We provide opportunities for Community Builders and local groups to take part in “learning journeys.” These journeys give groups an opportunity to travel to places where innovative community work is happening, so they can learn on the ground and do participatory research on what might work for them. We feel this process helps to avoid “recreating the wheel.”
Real Communities includes an ongoing Learning Circle of local community initiatives and committed community members in Georgia who want to learn together about building more inclusive welcoming communities where people with disabilities have good lives as contributing community members. The Learning Circle seeks to intentionally cultivate innovation and creativity in practical terms by letting go of old ideas, reflecting on our new experiences, and experimenting with new action approaches. The Learning Circle is a container to hold the organizing and learning components of Real Communities. It will be an ever evolving process as we learn together and from each other. We seek to be a trusting circle of support where each of us can share our insights and our success, as well as our confusion and challenges. We are ‘creating the road as we walk it’ towards more welcoming communities where people with developmental disabilities are valued members.
Download the GCDD Real Communities Initiating Group (656KB PDF)
Download the GCDD Setting Out Real Communities Retreat (3.7MB PDF)
Council Supported Projects
Fitzgerald
Located in south central Georgia, Fitzgerald and the surrounding Ben Hill County area is a small rural community. In 2008, Ben Hill County had a poverty rate of 23.2%. Locally, residents have been organizing around the issue of transportation for nearly two years, and in the past year have been working with the GCDD as part of Real Communities. The core organizing group in Fitzgerald consists of everyday citizens with and without developmental disabilities; family members of people with developmental disabilities; representatives from People First of Fitzgerald; the Jessamine Place (local service provider); East Central Technical College; the city of Fitzgerald; and Ben Hill County, among others.
In Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County, there are very few options for transportation outside of privately owned vehicles. This greatly limits opportunities for recreation and social activities, medical access, educational and employment opportunities, as well as everyday errands a resident may have. In the past year, one individual using a wheelchair was killed by a motorist while trying to travel on a street with no sidewalks. The issue of transportation impacts all who live in the area, regardless of disability. The core group is particularly interested in community-based responses to transportation. Models currently being explored include formalized ride share and carpool programs, transportation co-ops, church van co-ops, and time banks.
In July 2010, Ben Hill County and the City of Fitzgerald successfully passed a Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) which includes $250,000 specifically earmarked to provide seed funding for community-based transportation models being explored as part of the Real Communities Initiative.
Korean Coalition
This group was initially formed in response to a needs assessment done by the Center for Pan Asian Community Services via an innovative grant from the GCDD. The Korean Coalition is in the beginning stages of forming an organization of Korean families who have family members with disabilities. In our purposeful learning process, we have seen that often starting as a family group can be a powerful and empowering first step in building a group to act in the larger community. Once parents have the opportunity to connect with others facing similar barriers, access basic services, and build some strength as a smaller group, they are better able to reach out to the larger community. As parents see the limitations of disability-only groups, the appeal of widening the lens to the entire community becomes more clear and apparent.
Community Action Pioneers of Gwinnett
The Community Action Pioneers of Gwinnett (or CAP) was formed in 2008. The organization is made up of Gwinnett County residents who are graduates of the Partners in Policymaking program and are all parents of children with developmental disabilities. Their beginning activities were focused on systems change and advocacy work, as well as a small project reaching out to a local religious congregation around accessibility. In recent months they have begun to explore the use of ABCD as a part of Real Communities. The group is interested in exploring human service co-operatives, life sharing and other alternative co-operative arrangements that allow adults with developmental disabilities live and participate in integrated settings in their communities. Visit their website at https://sites.google.com/site/communityactionpioneers/ for more information.
City of Milton
The City of Milton is located in North Fulton County in the metro Atlanta area. Milton is a new city, formed at the end of 2006. Since its inception, the City of Milton has been extremely dedicated and intentional in ensuring accessibility and providing opportunities to involve residents with disabilities. When the city was founded, the Milton Disability Awareness Committee (MDAC) was created as an official committee of the City Council. MDAC has worked with City personnel to ensure they are familiar with the American with Disabilities Act, have a basic level of awareness of issues impacting people with disabilities and have also worked to reach out and educate the larger community.
The GCDD is currently working with MDAC and the City of Milton as part of Real Communities to ensure Milton is truly welcoming to all who live there and to provide opportunities for citizen engagement and involvement in community. We are currently working to develop a mini-grant program that would be administered by the City of Milton. The purpose of these mini-grants is to provide neighborhood groups and residents with resources to create community-driven projects that enhance and strengthen local community life, build avenues towards civic engagement and create avenues for the full participation of all residents, specifically those typically left out of community life. All projects are initiated, planned and implemented by local residents. Mini-grants support neighborhood improvements, promote neighborhood associations and fund projects that bring community members together and create avenues for inclusion. Engaged and connected residents are the greatest asset in any given community. By allowing residents to actively engage in improving their communities and making them more welcoming for everyone, we see great things emerge and a new relationship develop between residents and local government.
Additionally, Milton’s Community Builder has been working hard to develop a citizen-led group to build relationships and use Asset Based Community Development to improve the City of Milton for everyone who lives there.
Centenary United Methodist Church
Located in College Hill Corridor in down Macon, GA Centenary Church was founded in 1884. Until the 1980s, the neighborhood and congregation of the church was mostly affluent and Caucasian. By the 1990s, the neighborhood was mostly African American and extremely impoverished. The congregation’s number dwindled. It became clear that both the church and neighborhood would not survive unless major changes were made. In 2005, the church began to work actively to reach out to and engage the surrounding neighborhood. The congregation is now extremely diverse and dedicated to addressing the concerns of the community in long-term and sustainable ways. The diversity of the congregation is something Centenary not only embraces, but is proud of.
Centenary has a Minster of Community Building on staff, has started a community garden, has a transitional housing program for men, a microloan program, support and house a summer camp for youth whose parents are incarcerated, in addition to other programs that actively support the community and address root causes as opposed to providing temporary band-aid type relief. Recently Centenary has been involved in a large effort to open a food co-operative in the College Hill Corridor of Macon.
The GCDD is exploring collaboration opportunities with Centenary as part of Real Communities. Centenary is very interested in exploring ways to welcome people with disabilities and their families into the congregation and offer opportunities for them to contribute.
Real Homes »
Real Careers »
Real Learning »
Real Support »
Real Influence »
Other Partners and Resources
Video Interview with Professor John McKnight: Capacity Building Beyond Community Services
Mike Green
Centenary Church
The City of Milton
ABCD Institute
Inclusion Press
Community Activators
