DRIVE’s Transformative Community Engagement Plan

One of the anchoring pillars of DRIVE’s work is Transformative Community Engagement which means, we want to inform, equip, and mobilize residents, in mass, to seek the change they wish to see in the community. While great success has been achieved through the work of Neighborhood Hubs and other partners focused on engaging the community, we are creating a multi-pronged approach that will help achieve Fresno DRIVE’s goal of mobilizing 30,000 people by the year 2030. Below, are some of the ways we plan to reach that goal.  

Place-Based Strategy 

Our Civic Infrastructure and Opportunity Corridor Initiatives have been catalytic in implementing a place-based strategy. With 11 Neighborhood Hubs focused on elementary school neighborhoods over the past four years, we have seen amazing growth in connecting both adult and youth community members to a variety of activities. Equally, our Corridors cut through many of these same neighborhoods which has allowed engagement with business and property owners. Over the years, we have connected with approximately 10,000 individuals.  

It is our vision to expand this reach to 32 total neighborhoods in Fresno that have organized residents deeply engaged in the welfare of their community. That would be a third of Fresno’s neighborhoods engaged in civic participation of various levels. All focused on creating healthier people and healthier places.  

Power Building Strategy 

Community power building is the set of strategies used by communities most impacted by structural inequity to develop, sustain, and grow an organized base of people who act together through democratic structures to set agendas, shift public discourse, influence who makes decisions, and cultivates ongoing relationships of mutual accountability with decision makers that change systems to advance overall equity. Basically, it’s getting our community to the point where they can achieve the goals they strive for. It takes time to get to that point, but this type of power shifting is needed for DRIVE to reach its desired outcomes. 

Some key components for measuring power building: 

1. Gaining Power – Active membership, leadership development activities, engaging allies, effective communication with community residents.  

2. Exercising Power – Shared understanding of organizing model, well developed, informed and adaptive strategy, series of targeted collective actions. 

3. Having Power – Degree to which community determined changes were made, representation of community leaders in positions of power, major institutions recognize that community leadership must be engaged and share in decisions. 

Issue Based-Strategy 

In partnership with several community benefit organizations (CBO), DRIVE will help create opportunities for community members to learn about specific focus areas that are vital to Fresno’s healthy development. These pathways will be hosted and facilitated by local CBO partners that have expertise in the various pathways that are created.  

As residents garner more knowledge and skills in these areas, the desired outcome is that they take actionable steps in advocacy, speak into systems or policy change, or for their voice to be activated in decision making tables across the city.  

Areas of focus for the learning pathways include: 

• Housing 

• Health & Wellness 

• Environmental Justice 

• Land Use 

• Education 

• Early Learning 

• Transportation 

• Neighborhood Safety 

• Fresno Economy 101 or Economic Development 101 

These are just three of the key strategies within Fresno DRIVE’s Transformative Community Engagement Plan. The plan is nearing completion, and we expect to have it posted on our website by the end of August.