How Community Engagement Strengthens Small Cities and Towns – Webinar Recording
In this webinar from Community Heart & Soul along with ICMA – International City/County Management Association, you’ll explore a new model for more effective small-town community engagement. Inclusive community engagement helps small cities and towns identify and achieve meaningful community and economic development goals.
During this webinar, you’ll hear how community engagement deepens resident involvement while producing compelling action plans and exciting results, from increased funding to renewed community pride. The speakers will share success stories from towns that have utilized Community Heart & Soul. Our resident-driven process engages the entire population of a town in identifying what they love most about their community, what future they want for it, and how to achieve it.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn the overarching elements of Community Heart & Soul, a model for small town resident engagement;
- Explore how to identify who lives in a community and the ways people are connected;
- Understand how involving residents can bolster community and economic development.
Presenters:
- Mark Sherman, President, Community Heart & Soul
- Michele Bannon, Mayor and former City Clerk, City of Carbondale, PA
- Annie Short, Project Director for Grants, City of Mendota, IL
Click to watch the webinar recording above.
Want to bring Community Heart & Soul to your town? Apply for a $10,000 Community Heart & Soul Seed Grant to get started. Learn more at: www.communityheartandsoul.org/seed-grants
About Community Heart & Soul:
Founded by Lyman Orton, proprietor of The Vermont Country Store, Community Heart & Soul is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to establish and promote a community practice that engages all residents within a community in determining what matters most to the people who live there and uses their ideas and aspirations as the blueprint for a better future. The Community Heart & Soul model has been field-tested in over 125 communities across the U.S. Orton established Community Heart & Soul after serving on his town’s planning commission and growing frustrated that decisions being made that would shape the town’s future were without guidance from the majority of the residents.
