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Community Development and Community Capacity Building

Community development is a process dedicated to connecting people, ideas, and resources to improve conditions in communities. Community capacity building models focus on creating an environment for lifelong learning and continuous improvement directed toward sustainable change. Key elements of community development and capacity building efforts include civic discourse and community engagement. The goal of these efforts is to strengthen our communities through strategies that:

• Focus on citizens' concerns
• Encourage civic participation
• Improve public deliberation
• Reconnect citizens, schools, business and policy makers to community life

Communities with the greatest and most diverse citizen participation are often strong and resilient. Specific information on this site includes tools for community assessment, strategic planning, advocacy, leadership, evaluation and grant writing.