APPLICATION DEADLINE EXTENDED to Friday, August 1, 2014.
No Longer Accepting Applications
OVERVIEW OF THE OPPORTUNITY
The Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) invites teams of three senior local officials and key stakeholders from up to 15 U.S. cities and metropolitan regions to a one-of-a-kind training and peer-learning opportunity that will advance and accelerate community-based approaches to building greater resilience.
U.S. cities are experiencing a groundswell of action by neighborhoods, households, and individuals focused on building stronger, more resilient communities in the face of climate change. Cutting-edge city leaders recognize that citizen engagement and strong social networks are a critical component to resilience. They are responding by empowering citizens in resilience planning. The days of citizens having to choose between cooking dinner for the kids or being involved in their community are numbered. Instead, there are a host of innovative methods and tools which empower citizens to co-create plans and policies with city staff that are most relevant to their needs and interests.
This is not easy; government must engage with an active, and vocal, electorate while maintaining an orderly planning process, and citizens must leverage their collective voice and keep goals achievable.
In this Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy (SCLA) on Empowering Community Resilience, we will share the most effective ways to foster citizens’ momentum for real and lasting community resilience. We will cover the following:
- The best practices for empowering communities by connecting policymakers to real-world issues in local neighborhoods while building a foundation for community participation in resilience planning.
- Effective ways to galvanize local action for resilience by delivering demographic-specific messaging, which makes the meaning of – and need for – resilience hit home with community members.
- Approaches to inclusive planning such as participatory facilitation techniques, crowd-sourced idea generation, and visualization tools for scenario planning.
This workshop is part of ISC’s broader SCLA, a program that builds the capacity of communities – cities, towns, counties, metropolitan regions and rural areas – to advance, accelerate and scale-up local solutions to the global challenges of climate protection and sustainable development.
“I wanted you and the rest of your team to know that these particular 2 ½ days were the most interesting, engaging and productive days I have ever spent at a conference-type event. The design, content and participant mix was beyond fantastic, as were the “mixer” breakfasts, huddles, and table assignments… Thank you, thank you, thank you!” - Sabrina Campbell, Program Coordinator, Upper Rio Grande Workforce Development Board, El Paso, TX
Who Should Attend?
Each city team should consist of the following senior-level stakeholders:
- City Sustainability Director or another senior city official with leadership responsibility for community engagement for climate change adaptation and resilience
- Community-Based Organization Leader with deep ties to the local community and experience or interest in participatory resilience planning
- A City Communications or Outreach/Engagement Leader with responsibility for framing and communicating complex issues to diverse audiences and/or engaging neighborhoods and citizens
*Teams may bring two additional senior-level team members with all costs (travel + registration) covered by the team.
While this academy is geared towards serving community teams that have some experience in engaging local community leaders in collaborative governance for resilience, it is also open to those communities who have yet to begin formalizing a strategy but have identified community resilience as a key city focus.
WHY PARTICIPATE?
This SCLA will help your team advance and improve efforts for participatory community resilience planning by exposing you to the most advanced expertise and thinking in the field, and by offering opportunities to both share with – and learn from – your peers from across the country.
By leaving daily responsibilities behind and immersing your team in the topic for three days, you will have the chance to foster new relationships and return home with shared understandings that can inform your future efforts. Unlike other events where individuals attend in isolation, the SCLA creates powerful team learning opportunities, which resonate long after participants return home.
ISC will finalize the scope and design of this SCLA over the next few months by consulting directly with the selected cities. ISC staff will contact participants to learn about successes that can be showcased at the workshop, as well as specific challenges they are facing and to determine the types of training and peer-learning opportunities they most need and want. Highlights of this CLA workshop will include:
- A diverse mix of 10-15 city- or region-led teams of practitioners from throughout the country;
- Plenty of time for networking, learning and strategizing within and across teams;
- A faculty consisting of leading national experts and practitioners;
- One or two inspiring keynote presentations; and,
- A blend of interactive panel discussions and small-group working sessions focused on key challenges identified by participants.
ABOUT ISC AND THE SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
ISC has a 23 year history building the capacity of communities around the world to meet their sustainable development challenges and opportunities. For the past five years ISC’s national and regional Sustainable Communities Leadership Academies have been providing high-caliber, affordable training and peer-learning services to cities and regions forging local solutions to global climate disruption and fostering sustainable communities. Previous SCLA workshops have focused on low carbon transportation, building energy efficiency and retrofitting; green job creation; climate adaptation and resilience; and sustainable community/regional development.
In all, ISC has managed more than 98 projects in more than 30 countries. For more information, please visit www.iscvt.org.
“It was one of the best experiences I had as a planner. It was spectacular.
The sessions just got better and better. It was invaluable in helping us figure out how to work together. We clicked.”
– Jennifer Rimmer, Director of Economic Development, Nassau County, New York
When:
September 11-12
Beginning at 9 AM
(This workshop has been scheduled to accommodate sustainability directors who will be attending the Urban Sustainability Directors Network meeting in Houston earlier that week.)
Cost:
$500 per team member.
ISC will cover flight costs (up to $500) and hotel stay (September 10 and 11 only) for three (3) team members. Each team member beyond three will be responsible for their own travel and lodging costs, as well as the $500 registration fee. ISC will provide breakfast, and snacks to participants throughout the course of the program. Participants are responsible for all other related costs, including ground transportation, dinners and any additional nights of hotel stay.
