[Springboard] Is this an example of "guild" or "order/league"??

Mon Dec 10 15:06:45 EST 2007

Jim, do your have the link to the pic, or did I overlook some text? 

Great story. It will at least go to son John who is trying to get past his
association's by-laws not to plant anything in the front yard. Our
association's by-laws are the same. So, please include an article about how
to overturn or counter association by-laws without getting run off or going
to jail, at least for long, and with minimal court/lawyer costs. Oh, and how
to water such great projects within municipal laws during droughts? We use
grey water now for the few veggies we have on the patio and flowers in
front. Some are digging wells to keep their yards and flowers beautiful.
That's tinkering with the common water table. Wow, what an interdependent
universe! So all stories feed into that story, as we're coming to know full
well.

jpc

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From: springboard-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:springboard-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of James Wiegel
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 2:42 PM
To: springboard email list
Subject: [Springboard] Is this an example of "guild" or "order/league"??

Community Engagement - Gardening in the Front Yard
Published at October 16, 2007 in My Inspiration, Fundraising and Community
Engagement. 
My black Lab, Hallie, owned our back yard. She would dig. She would run deep
grooves into the grass. Garden after garden fell to Hallie's exploits.
Finally, I dug up a plot next to the driveway. And I planted my vegetables
in the front yard.
That was twenty years ago - two houses ago, a marriage and another dog ago.
And still, my garden is in the front yard.
Tomatoes and okra and basil and zucchini in the summer; lettuce and carrots
and peas and broccoli in the desert winter. All in the front yard.
Why the front yard? Because my garden makes friends.
Since moving into my current home, my front yard garden has introduced me to
neighbors from many blocks away. Some ask gardening questions. Some put my
house on their morning walk route, to see what's new. And some bring gifts.
That's how I met Earl. My doorbell rang one morning, and there stood a
sweet, elderly man holding a plastic baggie filled with sunflower seeds. "My
wife used to love driving by your house. She always wanted to see what was
new. I lost her last month." He handed me the bag of seeds. "These are from
her sunflowers."
And every year, from then on, I have planted a wall of sunflowers, swirling
along the front sidewalk, in honor of Earl's love for his wife. And of
course those giant flowers bring more new friends.
So why am I telling you this?
Because planting your garden in the front yard is precisely what Community
Engagement is all about.
Community Engagement forms real, honest, engaged relationships between
members of the community and your organization's mission and vision.
Community Engagement is not marketing or fundraising or volunteer
recruitment, but it will certainly accomplish those things. It will also
help you build the most effective programs possible. It will help you
further every single one of your goals. And it will help you with the
biggest goal of all - building an engaged community (the same goal as my
front yard garden).

But here's the real secret - and it is what separates Community Engagement
from Marketing and all those other "just for show" efforts: For engagement
to work, it has to be honest; it has to be real.
If my front yard were merely a well-manicured, just-for-show row of hedges,
no one would stop. No one would introduce themselves. No one would make my
house a special part of their day.
My neighbors stroll by because my garden is honest, authentic. In the
morning, they find me working. At dinner time, they find us harvesting.
There are butterflies and ladybugs, and finches all over the sunflowers. My
neighbors don't just see the final product; they also see the sweat, the
compost, the pruning, the digging. I do not have to tell my neighbors I want
to engage them; my garden shows them.
And when they walk by with a friend, pointing out this or that, they do so
with pride, as if some part of my garden is also theirs. Because, in part,
it is.
So how about your organization? Are you gardening in the front yard? Are you
sharing the inner workings of what it takes to do your work, so the world
can become engaged with that work? Are you being as open and inviting as you
can be? Can your community connect so deeply and easily with your work, that
they feel as if it is their work, too?
Or do you feel those inner workings are meant for the back yard, only
showing the world a perfectly manicured lawn and hedge? The difference is
more than just metaphor. The difference is the degree to which the community
feels a part of everything your organization does.
The more your community feels they are a part of your work - the more they
can point with pride, as if your work is their own as well - the more
effective your mission will be, in every single way.
So how do we do that?

(Photo credit: My garden's abundance, and Earl's Sunflowers)

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2 Responses to "Community Engagement - Gardening in the Front Yard"
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1 Bonnie Koenig 
Oct 25th, 2007 at 6:03 am 
Hildy -
You're always thought-provoking! but this one especially made me stop and
think (and prompted me to write!) about this different way of looking at how
our organizations can reorient their thinking to more actively engage with
their communities. Many do some of this almost systematically -for example
by sending spokespeople traveling and out to speak in the community - but
few think about how lots of smalll actions, that naturally introduce parts
of themselves into the wider community, can make such a difference. It comes
down to a change in mindset (like so many things!?).are we comfortable
quietly gardening out back (and just inviting those we choose to come visit
us)? or do want to do more gardening out front (encouraging many we do not
yet know to come and start a dialogue with us)?! Thanks for sharing this
story!
Bonnie Koenig
2 Hildy 
Oct 25th, 2007 at 8:56 am 
I am laughing, Bonnie, because my thought upon reading your comments was,
"Bonnie is always so thoughtful about things!" Imagine the fun of our doing
a presentation together one of these days!
We are in California right now, doing workshops with (of all ironies) the
various local and regional Fire Safe Councils. And the theme in every one of
these sessions, generated by the participants themselves, has repeatedly
come back to a need for more engaged communities. Your thoughts, combined
with theirs, has led me to pen a few more posts on the subject, including
the 11 Ways to "do" such engagement (coming up soon!). 
It does indeed require that we think differently. But as the Buddha said,
"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our
thoughts, we create the world." HG

401 North Beverly Way 
Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
+1 623-936-8671
+1 623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
www.partnersinparticipation.com

Will tomorrow be here soon? ... of course it will. Not once has tomorrow not
been here, but what about yesterday? Where is it now? It will be gone to us
. . . like today will be long gone ... When tomorrow comes around. -- Dodge
Chatto 1975 

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