community sustainability and consumption web guide

In May of 2011, Citizens’ Greener Evanston (CGE) launched The Community Agenda as a call to action for Evanston community members and environmental stakeholders. The agenda reflects the intention of mobilizing CGE volunteers and neighbors to actively participate and connect in a cooperative manner as we strive to have a healthy environmental and social impact on our local community.

Designing a campaign to ignite a sustainability movement.

The City of Evanston and Citizens’ Greener Evanston have created the 10,000 Neighbors campaign as an invitation to all community members to join the groups working on the broad community agenda for sustainability. It is a direct appeal to emphasize the ‘us’ in sustainable.

The campaign, and the on-going work of CGE’s Community Agenda groups, is being supported by a set of dynamic, on-line social consumption and networking tools designed by sr4 Partners LLC and OhSoWe. This guide provides insight into those tools and offers recommendations for organizing and mobilizing community intentions for action.

Community Organizers

Campaign

Movement

Relationship Dialogues

Interpretation for Motivation

The community mobilizes and deploys its resources on behalf of its interests

—as actions or as advocacy

Be one of the 10,000 neighbors who are rediscovering the notion of 'what’s mine is yours.'

Every one of us has those things that we bought for a weekend project or event. It might be that power drill tucked away under your work bench. Or those folding tables that await family holidays. You may view these as the things that prevent you from parking your car in the garage. We call them your shareables.

List your shareables today and join those in Evanston who choose to consume less by simply sharing what they already have.

10000neighbors.com

Rediscoversharing

OhSoWehttp://10000neighbors.com

OhSoWe.com is a social network site that enables members of a community or existing local groups to share physical items. Created to promote the values of collaborative consumption, the OhSoWe site serves to organize and mobilize Evanston groups interested in broad sustainable practices. These groups will serve as our the building blocks of our sustainability movement.

When an Evanston community member joins 10,000 Neighbors, they can join one of five CGE Agenda Groups already organized on OhSoWe…

…or, they can register their existing group and extend an invitation to members to start sharing. (Choose ‘Add Your Group’ from your Dashboard.)

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Each of the five Community Agenda Groups of Citizens’ Greener Evanston on OhSoWe have designated volunteer leaders called ‘initiators’.

Group initiators focus on recruiting and inviting new members to their groups (choose ‘Invite Friends’ from your Dashboard) and facilitate discussions that reflect stated group goals. Calls to action can also be posted as a discussion and link group members to the Community Agenda WebHub.

Group initiators are active members of the OhSoWe community joining neighborhood and local groups of interest and posting shareables to build the lending library of physical items.

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the community agenda

Community Agenda WebHubhttp://agenda.greenerevanston.org

The Community Agenda ‘webhub’ is designed to be the public view of the work being done by each of CGE’s five Agenda Groups. Community members can access tools, resources and social activity being generated by each group.

The Agenda Home Page allows you to Sign In to your OhSowe dashboard allowing you to join groups, share and contribute to discussions.

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The Newsfeed allows you to call attention to events and activities of importance.

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Take Action. Direct Access to each Agenda Group page is available from the Home Page.

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Collaborate with Neighbors. Direct feeds from OhSoWe are featured on the Home Page to heighten community awareness.

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The Sharing Toolbar allows you to connect friends and neighbors to the Community Agenda via popular social outlets.

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Each of the five Community Agenda Groups of Citizens’ Greener Evanston have a dedicated page for goal-oriented calls to action and group communication.

You can customize your goal statement and group description.

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Community tools and resources can be added as they are identified and developed by the Agenda Group.

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Group specific feeds from OhSoWe are featured on each Agenda Page to promote on-going discussions and sharing. Group Members are shown for neighbor connections.

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Inspire Me. Topical videos and resources can be posted by the group for feed into the page.

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Tips for Community Agenda Leaders

1. Sign-up on OhSoWe and invite your friends and neighbors to join 10,000 Neighbors and your CGE Agenda Group. Invitations can be sent through OhSoWe.

2. Monitor those who join your Agenda Group, send them a welcome note and connect them to your Agenda Group Page on the Community Agenda WebHub.

3. Use OhSoWe as your primary communication tool among group members. Post new discussion topics and meeting dates.

4. Have monthly group meetings to identify, refine and develop tools and resources that can appear on the your Agenda Page.

5. Collaborate and work with the City of Evanston Sustainability Office to pull forward important initiatives.

6. Identify and communicate volunteer and intern needs within OhSoWe and to CGE.

7. Collaborate with CGE Communications to create ‘campaign broadcasts’ highlighting your group’s activities and on-line resources.

8. Request support materials from CGE Communications for recruitment and promotion of group activities.

9. Seek program grants for development and expansion of group activities.

The Community Network WebHub is a project of sr4 Partners LLC in partnership with Internexo and OhSoWe. Companion research is intended to help private and public organizations achieve their important social and commercial change intentions.

http://sr4partners.com

community sustainability and consumption web guide

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