Young people’s involvement and leadership is central to creating sustainable community change. But many community groups run into problems when they try to engage young people in their work. Here, we lay out solutions to some of the most common issues.
Your community has a story to tell, and video could be the best way to tell it. Video can be more captivating than stills or text. Check out this guide to help you get started on using video to tell your community's story.
The step-by-step instructions provided here mirror the order that many discussion guides follow. They are designed to help the writing team move through a series of meetings and tasks to produce the discussion materials.
Use these worksheets to help your group design a strategy for reaching out and getting new volunteers and participants.
Images help bring your story to life and you can use them on almost all your promotional materials. If your program is just getting started, you can use stock photos. If you have your own, you can edit them using free tools available online.
Animated media offers a break from text and stills. You can create a video from photos you took at an event, or you can use a video camera to take some action shots and interviews of participants. If you’re interested in putting together a video, these tools can help you.
A website or blog can help you spread the word about your dialogues, post pictures and stories from your events, and share your success with your community and potential funders. The task of setting up and maintaining a website can seem daunting, but these tools will have you reaching out to your community in no time.
When you're in the early stages of planning dialogues, it can be easy to get stuck and not know what's stalling your progress. Here are six common traps that can prevent you from making real change, and ways to avoid them.
Social media can help support your program’s efforts, and it is possible to have an active community online. However, there are some common pitfalls you need to avoid in order to keep the discussion going.
Here are some examples of successful community social media efforts.
Our ultimate goal is to create positive community change that includes everyone, and we believe that our tools, advice, and resources will help foster that kind of change. Whether you’re grappling with a divisive community issue, or simply want to include residents’ voices in city government, Everyday Democracy's Dialogue-to-Change process can help community members take action and make their voice heard.
