Success Stories from the NH2020 Action Forum

Thanks to all of you who came to our Action Forum last December (photos here)! Not only did our new youth facilitators receive their certificates, but it was also a chance for the different New Haven 2020 Action Teams to meet each other, introduce their projects, and exchange ideas and strategies on how to make New Haven a better place in 2010. On theme that emerged in almost all of our action teams over the last couple of months was the need to engage youth in their effort, so on major area we will be working on in the next year will be youth outreach. The groups that are primarily working on this are located at Evergreen Family-Oriented Tree, Inc. in West River, at LEAP in Fair Haven, and around the WEB Management Team in the Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hill neighborhoods.

Additionally, we are keeping our mid-term goal in mind and plan to create new dialogues and action teams in other neighborhoods in 2010 and connect with groups that are already active. New Haven is a city that is full of people who are working towards a change, and New Haven 2020 is about connecting these people and getting more residents involved.

Celebrate with us at our Action Forum, Dec 10, 2009!

Over the last few weeks we have been meeting with members of the Action Groups that formed as a result of the dialogues last spring and worked with them to create mini-action plans so that they can break down their ideas into concrete, do-able action items and move forward. There are great ideas coming out of the community and we can't wait to share them with you! One of the major themes that emerged out of the dialogues was the need to engage youth in our initiative. As a result, several groups have organized dialogues with youth from their neighborhood and some of these youth will participate in a three-day long youth facilitator training from December 7 to December 9.

Our Action Forum on December 10, 2009, 6 pm - 8 pm, at Barnard School, 170 Derby Ave, New Haven is a great opportunity for you to meet our Action Groups face-to-face and learn first hand about their ideas, concerns, and strategies. This event will also be the Graduation of our new youth facilitators, where they will receive their diplomas!

>>> Please RSVP to this event here <<<

This is a great opportunity for you to to learn what we are all about and to get involved if you didn't have the opportunity to attend any dialogues last spring.

Working on Logic Models

Last Saturday members of our steering committee and representatives of the NH2020 dialogue groups met at the New Haven Main Library for an Evaluation Workshop organized by Everyday Democracy. After we learned about Logic Models and how to define an outcome and indicator, the teams introduced their Mini-Action-Plans to the group. We then reviewed every action plan individually and the teams worked in groups on refining them.

A logic model can best be described as a road-map for your project, which breaks down your vision into do-able action items and ties them to measurable outcomes and indicators - in other words, it helps you answer the question: 'How do we know that we have been successful?' It's a great tool to help you break your vision down to concrete actions and define concrete and observable outcomes. If you are interested in logic models, we want to share some links with you where you can find lots of resources on evaluation and measuring success of your initiative or group:

Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity
Racial Equity Tools
Innovation Network
Everyday Democracy

It was a great and very productive workshop and there are some great ideas coming out of our teams. If you want to learn more about us, meet our action teams and their projects, and become involved, we encourage you to come to our "Celebration of Phase I" event, which will take place within the next few weeks.

NH2020 - What's happening this fall?

It has been quite a summer and we want you to know that despite the heat and summer vacations we have been keeping busy and are now ready to continue with New Haven 2020 in the coming weeks!

Let us first give you a quick overview over what has been going on last spring and early summer: New Haven 2020, a community organizing initiative under the auspices of Everyday Democracy started a series of dialogues all over the city of New Haven. Dialogues have taken place at JUNTA in Fair Haven, at Evergreen Family Oriented Tree Sober Homes in West River, at the Neighborhood Management Team meetings in the Whaley / Edgewood / Beaver Hills (WEB) neighborhood, and at LEAP in Fair Haven. The dialogues were set up in a way that makes it easy to move from talking to action and the groups have come up with a number of fantastic action ideas that we are eager to help them turn into reality.

In the coming weeks we will start "Phase II" of the New Haven 2020 Dialogues, which will be an active outreach into the community of New Haven, so if we spiked your curiosity and you want to create a NH2020 Action Group in your community, this is the perfect opportunity to get involved. Contact us via email under newhaven2020 [at] gmail [dot] com.

All events, announcements, and public meetings will be posted here on the blog. To make your planning easier, you can quickly go through the little calendar on the sidebar to see all events at a glance. You can also sign up for our newsletter to get the latest news and event notifications delivered right to your mailbox. We hope to see you soon!

Welcome to New Haven 2020

The Promise of Our Combined Efforts

“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfy to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship.” – President Barack Obama

We Want You To Know, And We Hope You'll Be Involved

New Haven 2020: It Starts Now is an ambitious project designed to get a broad cross section of the people of New Haven thinking about, speaking about, and planning for the times we are in and the times to come – even as far off as the year 2020.

This spring and in the year ahead, we will be helping people organize and host dialogues on jobs, education, health care, public safety and other topics: issues New Haveners have told us were the most important to them. Some groups have already begun the process. We will support the work that is going on and encourage new conversations across neighborhoods and interest areas and with those not yet included. New Haven 2020 builds on the renewed interest and the investment in public life generated by the recent national election. It is an invitation to all of us to become involved.

New Haven 2020 is built on the premise that what each of us does today and every day thereafter will shape the New Haven of the future. We are already a city of tremendous talent and broad diversity. Let’s marshal those gifts and together build the city we know we would like to live in, a city that thrives, a city that nurtures each one of us.

You’ll be seeing and hearing more on New Haven 2020: It Starts Now in the weeks to come. Stay tuned. Your ideas and commitment are invaluable.

We’ll be talking for a change. We’ll be helping to move great ideas and workable solutions into action.