What typically comes to mind when you hear the word “poor”?  Crime, gangs, lacks, gaps, needs, wants, broken stuff…

Much of the social services sector is taught to assist neighborhoods and families in “need,” to examine what’s missing and how to “fix” them.  And when you can’t fix them anymore, you blame the complex system of services (or lack thereof) around them, not to mention the government leaders who probably signed those structures into place.

This logic never quite made sense to Angela Blanchard of Neighborhood Centers Inc. in Houston.  She’s known all along that you can’t build on broken.  You can’t build on lacks, gaps, needs, and wants.  They’re just labels for something that, well, doesn’t exist.

But you can build on strengths.

Since 2007 Innovation Partners has been a proud supporter and strategic partner to Neighborhood Centers Inc., helping the rapidly expanding human service agency to design and implement its “Building Vibrant Communities” model. This partnership facilitated a radical departure from traditional approaches to community and family development that look for what’s broken and instead embraced an appreciative approach that focuses on the human, social and cultural strengths of vulnerable populations.

And the agency is turning heads.  Lots of heads.

This past September, Neighborhood Centers President and CEO, Angela Blanchard, took the stage at the Business Innovation Factory’s (BIF) 7th Collaborative Innovation Summit (#BIF7).

With a passion for Appreciative Inquiry, Blanchard knows, "you can't build on broken". When you start with a community's strengths, and refuse to admire problems, a new conversation emerges. More significantly, positive change and more “promising” neighborhoods emerge.

More on Neighborhood Centers inspiring story and BIF debut:

• New England Business Journal interview featuring Angela Blanchard and IPI Partner, Jen Hetzel Silbert, by Beth Perdue
• Positive Living radio show interview hosted by award winning producer, Patricia Raskin, featuring Elizabeth Stefanski of the Business Innovation Factory and Jen Hetzel Silbert of IPI
• Forbes article, “Providential RCUS at BIF-7,” by Deborah Mills Scofield
• Axiom News feature, “Power of Inquiry Surfaces at BIF Summit,” by Jennifer Neutel

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Jen Hetzel Silbert is a partner at Innovation Partners International

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WHERE IN THE WORLD IS IPI? 

Innovation Partners is partnering with the Taos Institute and the AI Practitioner to release a special video issue on AI and Innovation at the 2012 World AI Conference,  in Ghent, Belgium, April 25-28, 2012.  The first 150 registrants will receive a free copy of the issue on a USB device.  Ada Jo Mann is participating on the International Advisory Team for the 2012 World AI Conference.

November must be strategy month! 

Tony Silbert just finished co-facilitating three strategy summits in three weeks.  Many clients SOARing from SWOT are experiencing the benefits of strength-based and high-engagement approaches to strategy development and implementation.  More to come in his upcoming blog, “Strategic Planning: it’s about creating a movement, not just a plan”.

Jen Hetzel Silbert partnered with the Rhode Island Hospitality Association & Education Foundation to support the development of its 2012 strategic plan using IPI’s Rapid Strategy Development approach.

In preparation for the internal transformation efforts for the newly created organization FHI360, Ada Jo Mann and Tony Silbert facilitated a SOAR Strategic Planning process with the Global Learning Center staff which included voices from field office staff represented through their pre-summit interviews.

Christine Whitney Sanchez worked with the Arizona Rural Development Council Board of Directors to collaboratively and rapidly develop the architecture for their strategic plan in just six hours.

Curious how Appreciative Inquiry’s “SOAR” model for Rapid Strategy Development fits with Agile, Six Sigma and Lean? Jen Hetzel Silbert and Tony Silbert designed and facilitated an in-house workshop to do just that in Washington DC.

Bernard Mohr, Bob Laliberte and Diane Carazas engaged participants of the Juice 3.0 conference in Camden, Maine: Powering the Creative Economy by Reframing Risk through an Appreciative Lens.
 
Bill Scott is working collaboratively with a group of social profit leaders and consultants that are charting the path forward for the next generation of leadership in the social profit sector in British Columbia. The six month long program dubbed Leadership 2020, uses two week-long intensives combined with bi-weekly webinars to appreciatively prepare current mid-level managers for senior leadership roles in the future.

A growing number of organizations are becoming conveners for community conversations and citizen engagement. The cities of Chandler and Goodyear, Arizona co-sponsored "Vibrant Phoenix", an event facilitated by Christine Whitney Sanchez, that drew 130 business and government leaders to discuss: How do we attract talent, grow talent and retain talent to diversify and create a vibrant economy?

The Asheville Food Policy Council is emerging as a community-based collaboration to ensure food security for a region in Western North Carolina.  Cheri Torres is working with them to support whole system engagement, deep collaboration and rapid action on food policy that will impact economic development, education, and health and wellness for everyone.
 
Lisa Hirsh is collaborating with Core Physicians, a multi-specialty group practice in New Hampshire, to boost physician engagement.  She is also coaching the team on SPARK, in which front-line staff video stories of innovation, collaboration and unique contributions to the patient experience.
 
Bill Scott attended the Collective Impact Through Social Innovation Summit on Vancouver in November. The purpose of this summit is to explore new ways of working collaboratively to drive social innovation and build partnerships to solve social and economic challenges in our communities. Key areas of interest to conference participants will be social innovation, social entrepreneurship and social finance.
 
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) has committed to becoming an Appreciative Organization. In it's move towards strength-based practices, it recently engaged in a cultural values assessment of the entire system. Cheri Torres is working with them to move towards their desired culture by designing for employee engagement and accountability, open communication and information sharing, continuous improvement, adaptability and innovation.  In addition, KCTCS will be integrating AI into Project Management of their overall college transformation initiative.

Bernard Mohr recently returned from the 2012 SocioTechnical Systems Rountable in New Orleans where he presented new research and models of practice dealing with “Designing the Adaptive Enterprise: STS 3.0”.
 
The Financial Planning Association is hosting it's annual Chapter Leadership Conference in Broomfield, CO.  Christine Whitney Sanchez is on deck to facilitate the member engagement portions of the conference focused on the 2012-2013 Strategic Plan. Building on August's Appreciative Inquiry Summit, co-facilitated with IPI partners Cheri Torres, Ada Jo Mann, Christine is collaborating with FPA board and staff members to bring the strategic plan to life for chapters across the country.

Jen Hetzel Silbert was a youth coach at the “If I Could Build A School” hosted by the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) and Rhode Island Department of Education, where over 40 RI students engaged in an R&D experiment to design a student experience where all students can thrive.  Silbert tweeted it best: “The secret to education reform is simply to listen to the student voice.”
 

Join the Strength-based Movement

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Interested in joining the strength-based movement?  Start here at an IPI public workshop (also available for private/in-house audiences by request).
 

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