Neighboring: Key Concepts

From our work, we've identified seven key concepts that can serve as a guide to success in engaging volunteers, strengthening families, and developing programs that empower challenged communities. Incorporate these concepts into ongoing work or build new projects on the foundation of these strategies so that your organization, your affiliates, and the community involved can succeed in making changes that improve people's lives.

• Understand the nature of volunteering in low-income communities -- Finding sustainable volunteer solutions to address the disconnection families face requires understanding the history and culture of the community and recognizing community members as experts. Learn and understand their language. The volunteering there is usually informal, often called "helping out," "giving back," or "neighboring," and is not recognized or rewarded in any formal kind of way.
• Overcome barriers to community involvement – Carefully examine and address barriers to volunteering such as lack of income or time, financial resources, child care, transportation, feelings of low self-esteem, and negative perceptions of volunteering or of outside organizations. Cultural and language barriers also can hinder people's ability to connect with their community.
• Empower communities to help themselves – Outsiders cannot be "parachuted" into community to rescue residents. Community members must be part of the planning and decision-making process. Ensure that residents take ownership for finding solutions and can see how their involvement solves real problems that they face every day.
• Cultivate community members' skills and talents – Identify and translate the gifts that community members have and turn them into tangible tools that lead to accomplishing project goals. Build upon these assets to develop sustainable programs that work long-term.
• Strengthen existing community leadership – Recognize existing leaders in each community and help develop new ones. Local leaders are invaluable in building community trust and ensuring that local perspectives are considered and understood.
• Acknowledge that neighboring is an exchange – Find ways to reward all volunteers for their contributions in ways that make sense and have meaning to them. Constructive, meaningful incentives and tangible rewards such as educational assistance, meals, housing assistance, and opportunities to grow job skills encourage neighboring.
• Ensure community readiness – Take time to build relationships and cultivate involvement. Communities may need help resolving conflicts or problems that are preventing residents' involvement. This process requires patience and flexibility, but the rewards are immeasurable.

Get into Action on your plan to strengthen families and transform your community.

For a complete report on our research on the nature of volunteering in tough communities, check out A Matter of Survival: Volunteering By, In, and With Low-Income Communities .