The first step in this process is determining who a community's leaders are, then giving them the basic tools necessary to plant the seeds of positive change. This initial series of work sessions is known as Community Readiness: Getting the Right People & Keeping Them. It is made up of four specific sections: Part One – Developing A Stewards Roster; Part Two – Creating An Entrepreneurship Plan; and Part Three – Developing An Engagement Plan.

Once they’ve completed this session, participants will be able to share the importance of relationships and networks to stewardship. More importantly, they will have many good ideas for finding and recruiting leaders within their community – oftentimes in places they may never have considered looking.

Part 1: Developing A Stewards Roster

This portion of the work session assists community members in the early phases of identifying community stewards. It also walks participants through a process that can help them build a stewardship council profile and identify potential community members to invite to the table. They are locating the best gardeners to help them plant the seeds of growth.

Who are these stewards? They are people of vision, passionate and energetic about their community. They think first about people and relationships instead of institutions. They are risk-takers who understand the changing dynamics of community development.

After Part 1, participants in our Steward Development will be able to recognize these characteristics in the future leaders of their community – and perhaps even in themselves.

Part 2: Creating An Entrepreneurship Plan

The second section focuses on the creation of a clear plan for pulling together support from various groups
in the community in new ways. In this way, community leaders serve as entrepreneurs for positive change.
The result is a recipe for the right soil mixture to best raise the crops of optimism and participation. This part
of the work session offers guidance for building a new community by driving a four-step collaborative process
which includes:

• Initiation, in which civic leaders work as motivators and networkers.
• Incubation, where entrepreneurs serve as teachers.
• Implementation, wherein leaders recruit expertise, locate resources, and otherwise help assemble the necessary ingredients to put tangible initiatives into motion.
• Improvement or renewal, in which these civic entrepreneurs serve as mentors and challengers of the status quo.