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"Where there is no vision, the people perish. So it is with
communities." Arthur Morgan
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Fostering
Community Development, Empowerment and Enlightenment
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"When a community and its people are
empowered, they have the capacity to articulate their
needs; to identify actions to solve those needs; and to
mobilize and organize resources in pursuit of commonly
defined goals. When the people of a community come
together to visualize and work together to achieve a
common future, they recognize that everyone--regardless
of education, job, race, age, or background--has
something important to contribute to personal and
community empowerment. Indeed, the greater the diversity
of the participants, the richer the vision and the more
effective its accomplishment" -- Lorraine Garkovich,
University of Kentucky |
Loraine's visionary statement and the
inspiring words from the song
Earth
by David Roth encompass our ultimate vision and mission of
fostering personal, community, national and global
transformation. We seek to accomplish that by providing expanded
access to state-of-the-art resources for development training
while incorporating the
Community Economic
Development principles of Self-Help, Empowerment and
Capacity Building.
To foster community empowerment, we provide a free initial
consultation to assist communities inventory their local resources,
identify what additional national resources might be applicable to
their needs, help them select an appropriate model or mechanism for
community mobilization and maximum citizen participation in the
planning process and guide them in selecting appropriate tools and
materials. We also help them identify and implement strategies for
obtaining and generating any funds required to implement their
community empowerment objectives.
Our underlying priority is to help generate the maximum possible
benefits for the community. For example, we might help them learn
how to produce an event locally that otherwise would generate a
profit for a for-profit promoter.
In some instances, a community will choose to modify our
Community
Economic Development Resource Center (CEDRC) model and establish a
similar facility locally. These CEDRC's provide expanded access to
information on available educational programs, sources of funding
and technical assistance and training in personal, organizational,
business and community economic development.
To help raise funds for the CEDRC, we may co-produce large scale
community events, design and help implement public relations
campaigns and help communities learn how to most effectively create
multi-sector partnerships, particularly with the corporate world.
CENTER SPACE helps communities address the economic development
needs of their citizens with education, job training,
self-employment training and technical assistance in designing and
delivering Successful Life and Work Skills Training and
Micro-Enterprise Development Training Programs.
The
outstanding success of Kankakee County CAN DO! is just one example
of how Center Space facilitates empowerment.
CENTER SPACE™ served as co-producer of CAN DO!'s first programs
which featured Les Brown, “The Master Motivator" Kankakee County CAN
DO! will feature major events on a regular schedule featuring
nationally known speakers such as: Les Brown, Zig Ziglar, Brian
Tracy, Steven Covey, Wayne Dyer, Denis Waitley, Dr. Joyce Brothers
and Lou Holtz.
In addition to the regular major events, CAN DO' will offer ongoing
workshops and seminars on topics such as: goal-setting, motivation,
time management, creative thinking and problem solving, conflict
resolution, organizational and community development, strategic
planning, etc. Many of these programs and services will be provided
through an agreement between CAN DO! and CENTER SPACE™.
Kankakee County CAN DO! Mission Statement
1. Provide expanded access to development training programs.
2. Foster community unity and multi-cultural understanding.
3. Promote positive thinking within and about Kankakee County.
4. Foster personal, organizational and community development and
empowerment.
5. Generate funds for worthwhile community service projects.
To
help other communities and non-profit organizations learn how to
successfully implement a program like CAN DO! CENTER SPACE™ is
compiling all the relevant information and materials in a three ring
workbook.
The workbook will include all the necessary documents, concepts and
instructions to enable replication of the CAN DO! concept in other
communities. Contents of the workbook will include: How to Select
the Most Appropriate Speakers/Trainers, How to Generate Maximum
Media Coverage, How to Promote Your Event, How to Minimize the Cost
of Printing, and How to Get Maximum Student Participation. Also
included are sample letters, flyers, news releases, brochures,
programs, public service announcements, sample ads, and a detailed
work plan with project budgets.
In addition to the workbook, consulting services will be provided to
support local replication of the CAN DO! program. The scope of
services could range from a minimal level of providing telephone
consultations to the maximum level of involvement providing on-site
coordination.
If you would like to learn how you and your community could benefit
from a CAN DO! program, please use the request form and we will send
you a packet of materials.
Les
Brown Proves Motivation Works!
Motivational
speaker Les Brown admitted he did not tell the 1,800 or
so
people who came to listen to him anything new. Instead, he fired
them up ... rekindling energies they already had and fortifying
resolves they had already made. The Daily journal 11-17-95
Les Brown
(left) was given an award as "The Master Motivator" Thursday as he
spoke to 1,800 people at Olivet Nazarene University's Chalfant Hall.
The event was organized by Kankakee County "Can Do!," a new
motivation group. Jack Charlton (center) from Kankakee, was given
the first "Can DO!" award for positive thinking. Charles Betterton,
(far right, Center Space's president, organized Brown's appearance.
The Herald
11-21-95
Examples of Programs and Resources for
Community Development, Empowerment and
Enlightenment
Wheel of Life Exercise
Community Unity
Celebrations
Community Resource
Centers
Success Center
Partnerships
The Holographic
Organizational Model
Metanoic Organizational
and Leadership Development
Wheel of Life Exercise For Community
How fully actualizing would your
community rate on this modified Wheel of Life?
How would you modify the Wheel of
Life exercise from Success Motivation
International to apply it to your community? What are some of the
factors you would use to assess how healthy and growth engendering your
community is? Listed below are a few possibilities. Take a few minutes to decide
which are the most important areas to consider from your personal perspective
and then make your own modified Wheel. Then complete the process of placing a
mark on each new spoke you create to reflect your present level of satisfaction
with your community. Then connect the dots and consider where your Community
Wheel of Life might be out of balance.
This can also be an effective group
exercise and it can help build consensus and engage community residents in the
co-creative process of discovering areas for potential improvement and for
developing goals and action plans for creating a better shared vision of
community.
Possible Factors for Evaluating How
Fully Actualizing A Community Is
Shared Vision and
Sense of Purpose
Sustainable
Access To
Earth
Stewardship Empowering Resources
Active
Participation
Honoring & Respecting
By Residents
In Individual and
All Areas of
Life Spiritual Expression
Job
Opportunities Resources for
That Match
Skills
Educational &
Mental Development
Balanced Focus On
Personal, Organizational &
Community Development
Copyright 2011-2016
by CENTER SPACE
www.centerspace.com
All Rights Reserved.
Cocreative Visioning and Strategic
Planning
Through
CAN DO!'s affiliation with
Ultimate Destiny
University, we will be providing
access to about $25,000 worth of resources for enabling any
organization or community to enjoy the benefits of a comprehensive
program for co-creative visioning and strategic planning. The
complete resource packet includes all the forms and exercises to
help the participants discover their shard vision, identify the
obstacles that have to be overcome and develop action and
implementation plans to accomplish the long-range and short range
goals they set during the process.
The Co-Creative Visioning and Strategic Planning
system was developed by CAN DO! co-founder
Charles Betterton. He has facilitated the use of the system for
communities, non-profit organizations, businesses, churches and
chambers of commerce. An example of the draft package which will be
part of the
You CAN DO! Too Resource Manual is available for review.
The Great Community by Arthur
Morgan
"Where there is no vision, the people perish.' So it is with
communities.
Americans have had no great expectations of theirs, and have had no
picture of what a great community might be like. The hope of the
small town has been, not to be a great community, but to become a
city. Seeing our communities as of little importance, we have
neglected them, robbed them, and fled from them.
Only as we come to see them as the sources of population and of
national character and culture, and as possible centers of interest
and opportunity, will our young people choose them for their life
careers. Economic and social security are not enough. If a community
is to hold its boys and girls, building with them a great community,
it must be to them a place of significance and of high adventure.
Because economic security is so generally lacking, many have felt
that if a whole community should be economically secure, other
limitations would disappear and the good community would emerge. Yet
often where economic security has existed the community has been
uninteresting, if not banal, and young people have fled from it.
Other communities, with the idea that education is the magic key
have staked their hopes on schools and colleges, only to find their
young people driven from home to seek careers. There have been many
ethically fine communities in which nearly every family lived in a
spirit of good will.
Believing that fine human relationships is the one essential of a
good community, they rested on their fortunate condition. Young
people of such communities, finding few home opportunities for
adequate careers, and lacking a vision of the Great Community, left
for more promising fields. In this manner, many fine communities
have been almost depopulated.
The Greatest handicap to human progress has been a partial view of
life. When people set their hearts on achieving some particular
excellence, their success has sometimes been remarkable, but the
resulting lopsided development has often resulted in social
breakdown. All-round growth may be slower and less spectacular, but
is more enduring. That is true of communities as of people. The
Great Community must be built on a full all-round view of life and
its possibilities.
The Great Community will achieve a living unity. It will not be just
an aggregation of individuals,
families,
congregations, firms, cliques, and interests. Holding that 'that
which unites us is greater than that
which
separates us,' it will develop unity of outlook, purpose, and
program without thwarting individual or group autonomy. Its various
organizations will not tear the community apart to advance
themselves, but will
be
agencies of an enlarging and unifying community life."
Arthur Morgan wrote The Small Community and The Great
Community in the 1940's. He founded Community Service,
Inc.
and served as President of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
www.expandingthecircleofsuccess.org
Copyright 2012-2016
Universal Stewardheirship, Inc. All rights reserved.
