Sharing Power with Communities: A Field Guide
A field guide from Community Wealth Partners for nonprofits and funders that want the communities they serve to help make decisions. It covers the groundwork and principles first, then three models: an advisory team, participatory processes, and bringing community members inside the organisation. It helps you choose the right one, flags common pitfalls, and draws on examples from United Way of Rhode Island, Miriam's Kitchen, Child Care Aware of America, the Greater Rochester Health Foundation and others.
Keywords
How to cite
Community Wealth Partners (2023). Sharing Power with Communities: A Field Guide. https://www.communitywealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Sharing-Power-with-Communities-Field-Guide-v5.pdf
Related in the library
- 13.4C179
Deciding Together: Shifting Power and Resources Through Participatory Grantmaking
A guide to participatory grantmaking, where funders share funding decisions with the communities they serve. It explains why and how funders around the world do this, drawing on input from participatory grantmakers. It covers models, challenges, lessons learned and good practice for inclusive grantmaking. Funders use it to design a participatory process or to explain the approach to boards and staff.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 13.4C180
Time to Decolonise Aid: Insights and lessons from a global consultation
A report on how structural racism keeps power in the Global North across humanitarian, development and peacebuilding work. It presents findings from a 3-day online consultation in November 2020 with 158 activists, practitioners, academics, journalists and decision-makers, who left over 350 comments. It sets out recommendations for donors, INGOs and others. The report is available in 15 languages.
CurrentResearch and evidenceFree - 2.1C012
One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP)
A one-page planning template from the Scaling Up Growth Tools set. It puts a team's core values, purpose, long-term goal, annual targets, quarterly priorities and actions on a single sheet, so everyone can see the plan and who owns each part. Leadership teams fill it in together and revisit it each quarter. It comes in a free download pack with other one-page tools such as the One-Page Personal Plan and the Rockefeller Habits Checklist.
ClassicTool or templateFree with sign-up - 2.1C014
Hiring a Strategic Planning Consultant
A short essay for nonprofit leaders about to engage a strategy consultant. It sets out 4 distinct purposes for strategy work, depending on whether the need comes from inside the organisation or from shifts outside it, and whether the audience for the strategy is internal or external. It then explains how to find, choose and work with a consultant who fits that purpose, including how to build skills in internal staff.
CurrentShort readFree - 2.1C015
How Nonprofits and NGOs Can Get Real Value from Strategic Planning
A set of free strategic planning resources for nonprofit and NGO leaders. The lead article sets out 4 elements common to most planning approaches. Its PDF also includes Strategic Planning at a Glance, a one-page overview of the process and its key questions, and Useful Tools for Nonprofit Strategic Planning, a glossary of common tools. A separate FAQ covers practical questions boards and teams ask when judging if they are ready to plan.
CurrentKey online resourceFree - 15.2C244
Earned-Revenue Strategies: A Field Guide
Community Wealth Partners' step-by-step guide for nonprofits weighing an earned-revenue venture. It opens with a readiness assessment, then walks through six steps: set goals, map your assets and opportunities, test feasibility, design the business model, plan implementation, and run a pilot. Each step comes with criteria lists, scorecards and reflection questions, and four case studies (Communities In Schools, Food & Friends, Per Scholas and the Center for Children's Law and Policy) show how it worked in practice.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 2.5C246
Where to Start: Setting a Bold Goal
A short, refreshing and inspiring field guide on setting a bold goal for transformational social change. It introduces Community Wealth Partners' Social Transformation Lifecycle, sets out the questions to explore before committing to a bold goal, and covers strategic alignment and spheres of accountability. Case studies from Share Our Strength, City Year and the Lumina Foundation show what a bold goal looks like in practice.
ClassicShort readFree
Related project ideas
Get expert help with grantmaking and capacity-building funding
Consulting and coaching projects built from 600+ real projects. Pick one, add your needs and hear from vetted consultants.
Decision-making & accountability framework
“Nobody is clear on who has authority to decide what — everything escalates upward, progress stalls, and staff feel neither empowered nor accountable.”See project
Change management support
“A major change is underway — a restructure, merger, or new strategy — and staff are anxious, resistant, or quietly disengaged.”See project
All 9 Organisational development project ideas
Work with a consultant or coach
Nonprofit Builder members can browse vetted consultants and coaches who work on grantmaking and capacity-building funding, and invite them to a project.
Suggestion box
Something to fix or add here?
Know a better resource on this subject, found a broken link, or spotted a mistake in this record? Tell us.
About C245 Sharing Power with Communities: A Field Guide
A person reads every message. A title, a link or a few words is enough.