Capacity Building
Contact Converge to discuss your professional development needs in these content areas:
- Becoming a Gifted Facilitator: Group Facilitation and Meeting Planning
- Collective Impact: Working Collaboratively for Community Change
- Collaborative Decision Making: Reaching Consensus
- Asset Based Community Development: Community Engagement and Organizing
- Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills
- Participatory Strategic Planning
- Working Across Cultures
- Youth Participatory Action Research
Sample Projects
Institute for Local Government’s (ILG) Public Engagement Program
As a component of a larger change management process and organizational transition, Converge CRT worked in partnership to assess the 10-year impact of the Public Engagement (PE) program. Funded by The James Irvine Foundation, this 9-month project sought to understand ILG’s role in changing how local officials use public involvement practices, recommend future activities and build staff capacity to evaluate progress. The assessment engaged 343 stakeholders through a statewide survey, confidential interviews, facilitated discussions, and focus groups. As a result, ILG secured additional funding to sustain their efforts, identified multiple opportunities for collaboration, and established a baseline to reflect on progress going forward.
Sacramento Promise Zone: Collective Impact Model for Public-Private Partnerships
Converge CRT co-presented with UC Davis Center for Regional Change and Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. The seminar featured an innovative evaluation approach that can be used as a model for comprehensive public-private partnerships that implement multi-sector, inter-disciplinary solutions to complex issues.
Black Child Legacy Campaign
Converge CRT worked with a team led by LPC Consulting & Associates to provide training and technical assistance to seven Sacramento neighborhoods organizing Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) projects. Deb co-developed and presented the train-the-trainer curriculum, which prepared adult allies and youth to conduct neighborhood-level research. Projects focused on reducing deaths of African American children. Youth teams conducted surveys, created educational videos, and presented their findings to community stakeholders.
Coalition for a Safe and Healthy Arden Arcade
Converge CRT designed a two-part training series focused on creating structures to enable greater collaboration and collective impact, including the establishment of workgroups, shared decision-making processes, and communication strategies. The training supported the Coalition in their goal to prevent underage drinking and substance abuse in one of Sacramento’s most affected neighborhoods.
State Independent Living Council
To introduce the fundamentals of using an asset-based approach in organizational and community development, Converge CRT designed an accessible webinar to share the basics of asset mapping. Members from California’s network of Independent Living Centers learned how systematically identifying assets can inform and strengthen an organization’s strategic plan.