Working Toward Sustainable Communities and Healthy Ecosystems

Collaboration in Community Based Partnerships

Natural resources management decision-making requires public participation to ensure that decisions will be acknowledged, as appropriate, and implemented. The decision making process is not simple. Facilitators and coordinators work in a socially complex environment with people who have different values, goals, and ways of acting within a group. Coupling the social issues with already complex and interrelated natural resources issues requires a holistic or ecological view approach that includes stakeholders.

Managing or coordinating participation is critical to enabling a successful and effective partnership. This is particularly true for watershed or regional efforts that require broad stakeholder participation and strive to be collaborative in nature. The goal of a collaborative process is to meet the particular needs of the group that is undertaking the effort, as well as to bring to light the natural resource issues that need to be addressed comprehensively. To work in large, multi-stakeholder groups, the leaders of the effort need a particular set of skills to manage the diverse and often competing interests that may exist within the group.

The following set of modules is a compilation of lessons Connecticut NRCS staff and others learned from experiences and research in the Norwalk River Watershed Initiative. Other staff experiences in local and regional resource management efforts, as well as the experience of others also contributed to the knowledge base from which the materials were produced. The modules evolved from a series of workshops conducted to assist people working on watershed planning and community-based planning efforts for natural resources protection. The modules focus on the procedural and social aspects of watershed and community-based planning.

Because each process is unique, these models are not intended to act as a "cookie cutter" molds that can be applied. Rather, they were developed to provide facilitators and coordinators with some basic principles that can be applied to collaborative locally based group efforts to address local resource issues. The intent is to offer some tools, methodologies, and thoughts that have been helpful and that may help in managing and moving forward with your own effort.

In this vein, feel free to use as much of these modules as you wish. They may be modified, adapted, or altered to meet your specific needs. A credit for the original modules is appreciated. Should you have questions, contact Seth Lerman at (860) 871-4065, or Walter Smith at (860) 871-4040.

The following documents require Microsoft PowerPoint .

• Collaboration in Community Based Partnerships for Resource Protection - Introduction (57 KB)
• Collaboration in Partnerships (412 KB)
• Collaborative Community Leadership (991 KB)
• Issues and Interests Identification (74 KB)
• Critical Meeting Elements (856 KB)
• Individual and Group Dynamics (234 KB)
• Public Outreach as Public Participation (332 KB)
• Understanding Your Community (547 KB)
• Planning as Collaboration (99 KB)
• Norwalk Case Study (373 KB)
• Guiding Principles for Collaboration (236 KB)

(Modules were developed with partial financial assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Long Island Sound Study.)  Thanks to the following people for their contributions:  

• NRCS - New York - Alan Connel

• NRCS - Connecticut - Kathy Johnson, Seth Lerman, Phil Morneault, Charlotte Pyle, Liz Rogers, and Walter Smith

• NRCS - West Virginia - Tom Noonan

• NRCS - New Hampshire - Hollie Umphrey

• Williams College, Massachusetts - Lisa Carey

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Mel Cote, Walt Galloway, Gerry Pesch

• Town of Wilton, Connecticut - Pat Sesto

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