Citizen Roles for Effective Community Governance

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Citizen Roles for Effective Community
Governance

• January 2007
• By Lyle Wray lwray_at_crcog.org
  
• Paul Epstein epstein_at_epsteinandfass.com
• [phone]
• Results That Matter Team www.resultsthatmatter.ne
  t

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Many Roles for Citizens

• Citizens play many roles in communities, which
  must be recognized and tapped to most effectively
  engage them in community governance and
  improvement.
• Major roles citizen play include
• Stakeholder
• Advocate
• Issue Framer
• Evaluator
• Collaborator

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Citizen Roles

• Stakeholder Someone who
• Is a service customer,
• Is an owner (shareholder) of the government or
  civic realm, or
• Is an interested party concerning community
  conditions, existing or proposed projects or
  policies, or community service problems.
• Advocate Someone who
• Tries to protect or advance specific interests,
  or
• Encourages the community to act.
• Issue framer Someone who
• Helps develop a long-term vision, goals, or
  strategic plan,
• Helps determine what issues get on the community
  agenda, and set priorities for allocating
  resources or acting on issues, or
• Defines problems from a citizens perspective.
• Identifies possible solutions to community
  problems.

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Citizen Roles

• Evaluator Someone who
• Assesses community conditions or service quality,
• Interprets data on performance or conditions, or
• Evaluates alternative solutions to community
  problems.
• Collaborator Someone who
• Helps forge compromise or build consensus among
  different interests to solve problems,
• Works in partnership with others to implement
  community improvements, or
• Identifies and helps leverage assets (e.g., other
  citizens, small businesses, community
  organizations, community meeting places) the
  government may not consider.

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Why Robust Citizen Engagement?

• Effectiveness
• Legitimacy
• Sustainability
• Ownership of issues
• Mobilize resources and support
• Bring citizens energy to community improvement

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Why Citizens in Multiple Roles?

• Providing a full range of roles
• Helps more people find their comfort zone of what
  they are willing and able to do, despite their
  different interests, knowledge, skills,
  constraints.
• Keeps citizens involved longer e.g., from
  advocacy to getting things done.
• Helps organizations identify more ways to support
  citizens as effective community partners.
• As a result, more people contribute more time and
  energy to community improvement.

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Numerous Examples of All Roles Are inResults
That Matter (Jossey-Bass 2006)

• Results That Matter provides
• In chapter 2, full descriptions of all roles with
  detailed examples, and a Quick Guide for
  supporting citizens in each role (see end of
  presentation).
• In chapters 4-8, examples of citizens playing
  multiple roles in the context of advanced
  community governance practices.
• Throughout the book, citizens who play the roles
  in communities across the U.S. describe their
  experiences.
• This presentation provides additional
  perspectives and summary examples of citizen
  roles, with references to practices and resources
  for your toolkit to support these roles.
• Epstein, Paul, Paul Coates, Lyle Wray, with
  David Swain. Results That Matter. (San Francisco
  Jossey-Bass, 2006).

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Citizen as Stakeholder (Customer)

• Private sector learning sustained and complex
  process to listen to and meet or exceed customer
  expectations
• In person and online set standards and evaluate
  service quality and satisfaction

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Citizen as Stakeholder Service First (UK)
http//archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/servicefirst/i
ndex.htm
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Citizen as Stakeholder (Owner)

• As A Matter of Fact I Do Own the Road bumper
  sticker
• Performance Reporting to citizens Early
  examples Mayors Management Report, New York,
  NY, Measuring Up, Province of Alberta, Canada
• Major GASB (U.S.) and CCAF-FCVI (Canada) research
  on reporting performance measurement information
  to citizens has encouraged many other U.S. and
  Canadian governments to issue public reports on
  performance.

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Citizen as Stakeholder Measuring Up (Canada)
http//www.finance.gov.ab.ca/publications/measuri
ng/measup06/index.html
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Citizen as Stakeholder(Interested Party)

• Everyones a stakeholder in the communitys
  quality of life
• Some have a more direct stake than others in,
  e.g.
• Specific issues, problems, or services
• New public or private buildings or facilities
• Proposed land use changes or development
• Important to keep people aware of their
  interests, especially when change is proposed,
  and to give them opportunities for influence.

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Citizen as Stakeholder Toolkit (Customer)

• Focused survey research on service user
  satisfaction with performance
• Performance service standards with consequences
• Point of service evaluation
• Focus groups on value points in service
  performance

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Citizen as Stakeholder Toolkit (Owner)

• Carefully design communication to citizens to
  help them be responsible stewards of public
  spending
• Provide regular performance accountability
  reports
• Focus on citizen value points in reports
• Report different levels of detail, using several
  media, so more citizens find information that
  interests them, e.g.,
• Summaries in printed reports, press, meetings.
• Details on web, with drill down by service,
  issue, demographic groups, geographic districts.

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Citizen as Stakeholder Toolkit (Owner)
To Help Governments Prepare Performance Reports
for Citizens
To Help Citizens Understand and Use Public
Performance Reports
http//www.seagov.org/
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Citizen as StakeholderToolkit (Interested Party)

• Mechanisms to keep community members informed of
  their interests and give them a voice in issues
  or changes that may affect them, e.g.
• Outreach, especially to underrepresented groups
  and all potentially affected interests
• Community boards, neighborhood councils, etc.,
  with formal advisory roles
• Community forums on proposed major developments
  or service changes
• Can also help citizens play other roles

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Citizen as Advocate

• People with common interests
• Find each other to strengthen their advocacy
• Find assistance they need (e.g., technical
  expert, legal, political) to give legitimacy to
  what they want
• Learn how things work and learn from each other
• Bottom Line People find their leverage

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Citizen as AdvocateToolkit

• Community organizing
• Neighborhood associations, homeowners
  associations, business associations, etc.
• Pro bono legal or technical assistance for low
  income communities (can be from universities
  e.g., community internships, class projects)
• Citizen academies, community leadership
  institutes, etc., and their alumni
  associations
• Can also develop citizens for other roles

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Citizen as Issue Framer

• Building a state or community vision
• Build common vision, build legitimacy, energize
  participation and resources.
• State examples Oregon Benchmarks, Minnesota
  Milestones
• Community visioning or strategic planning
  processes in many cities and counties
• Basis for tracking progress toward desired
  outcomes.
• Determining issues or priorities for the
  near-term agenda (e.g., annual budget, civic
  issue groups).
• Defining community problems and solving them.

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Citizen as Issue FramerMinnesota Milestones
http//www.mnplan.state.mn.us/mm/
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Citizen as Issue Framer Brisbane Australia
http//www.citizensleague.net/studies/blue_ribb
on/brisbane.pdf
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Citizen as Issue FramerToolkit

• Best practices in community strategic planning
  http//www.cairf.org/research/bpstrategic.pdf
• A Guide to Strategic Planning for Rural
  Communities http//www.ezec.gov/About/strategic.p
  df
• The Community Visioning and Strategic Planning
  Handbook. National Civic League http//ncl.org/
• Jacksonville Community Council Citizen Issue
  Study Process http//jcci.org/projects/studyproce
  ss.aspx
• Future Search interactive planning process
  http//www.futuresearch.net/
• AmericaSpeaks 21st Century Town Meeting for
  large-scale engagement of citizens on issues,
  planning, priority setting http//www.americaspea
  ks.org/

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Citizen as Evaluator

• Measure and publicly report on community quality
  of life or results of quality assessment of
  public services, e.g.
• Bangalore, India, municipal service report
• Jacksonville Community Council annual Quality of
  Life Progress Reports
• Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliances
  Vital Signs and web-mapping to view comparative
  neighborhood conditions
• Citizens collect data on conditions or service
  results that interest them
• Fund for the City of New York ComNET Citizens
  use PDAs to capture data on the quality of the
  urban environment
• Urban Institute Citizen trained observers in
  many countries
• Data Intermediaries help citizens amass and use
  publicly available data, e.g., National
  Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) in 26
  cities across the U.S.

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Citizen as EvaluatorBangalore, India
http//www.eldis.org/static/DOC6107.htm
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Citizen as Evaluator ComNET
http//www.fcny.org/cmgp/comnet.htm
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Citizen as Evaluator JCCI
http//jcci.org/statistics/qualityoflife.aspx
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Citizen as Evaluator BNIA
http//ubalt.edu/bnia/indicators/index.html
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Citizen as Evaluator NNIP
http//www2.urban.org/nnip/
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Citizen as EvaluatorToolkit

• Manual by the Urban Institute (Harry Hatry and
  others) on measuring effectiveness of nine common
  local public services How Effective Are Your
  Community Services? Includes a chapter on trained
  observer ratings.
• JCCI articles and guidebook on conducting
  citizen-driven Quality of Life assessment,
  including guidelines for selecting indicators
  http//jcci.org/statistics/understandingindicators
  .aspx
• Community Indicators Consortium network of
  indicators practitioners and researchers
  http//www.communityindicators.net/

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Citizen as Collaborator

• Citizens help forge compromise and consensus on
  solutions, then partner in implementing
  improvement.
• Citizens as partners in crime reduction, literacy
  and school success, clean streets, to homeland
  security.
• Focus on vision and partners who can help bring
  about the vision.
• Citizens identify and leverage assets (e.g.,
  other citizens, small businesses, community
  organizations, community meeting places) the
  government may not consider.
• Examples
• Recycling movement
• Saint Louis Park, Minnesota building youth
  assets.

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Citizen as CollaboratorToolkit

• Strategic community partnerships -- partner or
  coalition with like minded groups based on an
  assessment
• Sustain vehicles for connecting citizens to
  community outcomes -- continuity
• Inform citizens on results and repeatedly offer
  engagement invitations in credible and effective
  ways
• Children First, a call to individuals, families
  and organizations to give kids the care and
  support they need http//www.slpschools.org/cf/
• Asset-based community improvement approach in
  Building Communities from the Inside Out by John
  Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, The Asset-Based
  Community Development Institute, Northwestern
  University http//www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.ht
  ml

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Quick Guide to Supporting Citizens in Five Major
Roles of Citizen EngagementAdapted from Chapter
2 of Results That Matter (Jossey-Bass, 2006)