Community Engagement Planning Conversation:
Thursday, July 14, 2022
12pm-2pm Pacific time / 3pm-5pm Eastern time
Watch the meeting LIVE at this post. Just scroll to the very bottom of the page.
Details about how to participate are below.
Crafting a Community Engagement Plan
Over the past few months, the conversations of our Integrity Body have been considering what's next for our mission.
Following our values, as well as the very first question in the Catalytic Thinking framework, our first step will be to ensure that decisions about our future are led by the people most affected by those decisions - our community members. And that will require a plan for how to go about ensuring that!
Over the course of three meetings so far, we have followed Catalytic Thinking to craft that plan. You can find a summary of Meeting #1 here, where we discussed who would be affected by our engagement efforts, and listened to what is important about engagement. The summary of our second meeting is here, where we reached for what "good" would look like - what engagement makes possible, especially for the people being engaged. At our last meeting, we dove into the conditions that need to be in place in order to those outcomes to be realized. The summary of that meeting is here.
Our next conversation on July 14th will continue to consider the conditions that will lead to successful engagement. (And per our last meeting, we might not even wind up calling it "engagement." You will definitely want to listen to the July 11th conversation about the use of that phrase!)
Overall, our goals are simple. First, we need a plan - and we will have one! Second, though, we will be demonstrating the radical inclusion that Catalytic Thinking makes possible. We will be showing what it looks like to involve your community not just as volunteers for what you think is important, but as leaders, focused on what THEY think is important. After all, our community is the reason our work exists!
We hope you will be part of this conversation, because this is not theoretical - this is actually determining the next steps in Creating the Future's evolution!
How to Prepare
First, let us know if you plan to attend by sending a note at this link. Per the "How to participate" section below, please let us know which of the 3 ways you would like to participate.
Second, if you are not familiar with Catalytic Thinking or the Integrity functions of our board, the following will be helpful:
For those who think visually, this PDF graphic of the Catalytic Thinking Framework will give you an understanding of the flow of the conversation. For those who work best with text, you can follow along with the questions that guide Catalytic Thinking at this link. We recommend having these pieces available during the meeting, to spark your thinking during the discussion.
To get a sense of the context of our Integrity Board, this post introduces our thinking about that.
Third - and importantly - review our prior conversations about this topic, to be fully present for this meeting. You'll find summaries in the links at the top of this page. In reviewing those conversations, if there is anything you might add, please do so in the comments!
3 Ways to participate
If you have never been part of Creating the Future's work, all our strategy and board meetings are open and participatory, for anyone who wants to be part of the discussion. You can see more about that at this link.
Where we meet:
The board meeting will take place right here at this post. If the video does not appear precisely on time, please be patient – we are probably just running a few minutes late.
There are 3 ways you can participate in our meetings.
- If you are already familiar with and committed to Creating the Future’s work, and you would like to be actively involved in the meeting discussion side-by-side at our online “meeting table,” let us know, and we will send you an invitation to join us online. Read more here about what it means to participate in that way. (Please note that these seats are limited, to ensure everyone's voice can be heard. If you are not able to be in the room with us, no worries - there are still two other ways to share your insights with us!)
- If you want to participate but are unable to be in the meeting itself (perhaps you’re at work, or maybe at home with kids running around, etc.), watch the live-stream in real time and tweet your questions and ideas to us via the hashtag #CreatingTheFuture. We read those tweets aloud during the meeting, just as if you were there. This is a great first step for those who are not as familiar with our work, but want to get more involved.
(Please note: We will only see your tweets if you use the #CreatingTheFuture hashtag. In addition, during the meeting, we will not look at blog comments here at this post. While we will check those comments later, during the meeting we will only be following the #CreatingTheFuture hashtag in the Twitter stream.)
- Lastly, if you want to simply watch, or you want to think about what you’re hearing and respond later – or if you will be watching the recording after the meeting happens – please add your thoughts into the comments here at this post. We will include that thinking into the mix of things.
We look forward to your being part of our discussion on Thursday, July 14th!
* All Creating the Future's board meetings are open for anyone to participate, or to watch afterwards. To learn more about the thinking behind this openness - and our experiences with being open - click here.
Logistics: The meeting will happen right here at this post. Details are below.
Watch the meeting HERE on Monday
Note: if the meeting does not start on time please be patient as we may be running a few minutes late.
or, After the meeting - LISTEN TO THE MEETING HERE
or Download the MP3
(To download to your hard drive, right-click {or click and hold on a Mac} on the link above and select "Save Target As".. or "Save Link as"... depending on your browser)