The IPCR Initiative and Community Visioning Initiatives: How to Grow Consensus for a Community Narrative—“Organically”

Introduction—How Comprehensive Can Peacebuilding Efforts Be?

There is much that can be done to generate goodwill and promote peace that has not yet been done. Having this conviction—and seeing the potential for much compassion and much solution-oriented activity in many spiritual traditions and many fields of activity relating to peacebuilding, community revitalization, and ecological sustainability—has led this writer to explore ways of actualizing such potential. The result of those explorations is made accessible at the website of The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative, at www.ipcri.net .

We live in a very complex world, and there are many difficult challenges ahead. More and more people are coming to the realization that overcoming the challenges of our times will require problem solving on a scale most of us have never known before. A central focus of The IPCR Initiative is its advocacy for a combination Community Visioning Initiatives, \"Community Teaching and Learning Centers\" with ongoing workshops, and \"sister community\" relationships as a way of generating an exponential increase in our collective capacity to overcome the challenges of our times.

Community Visioning Initiatives can be described as a series of community meetings designed to facilitate the process of brainstorming ideas, organizing the ideas into goals, prioritizing the goals, and identifying doable steps. One of the main goals of Community Visioning Initiatives is to maximize citizen participation in identifying challenges, and in solution-oriented activity. This writer feels it is critical for people in every variety of circumstances to gain a deep appreciation for how comprehensive peacebuilding efforts can be—how every person in communities around the world can do something to contribute to the greater good of the whole. This writer believes that the work of The IPCR Initiative can help many people gain a deep appreciation for how comprehensive peacebuilding efforts can be.

A 7 Point List Describing How to “Organically Grow” a Peacebuilding Initiative

The following 7 point list highlights why something like The IPCR Initiative is needed, how consensus on a local community narrative can be “organically grown”—and how this approach to peacebuilding can maximize citizen participation, and thus create much solution-oriented momentum.

1) The IPCR document “Recalibrating Our Moral Compasses” (April, 2011) (http://bit.ly/jh6sMy) section titled “Statistics and Observations” identifies many danger signs which are now “flashing” (according to this writer’s view). Local community residents can use this “Recalibrating…” document as an example to create documents of their own which identify community values (cardinal points on their community’s moral compass) and the challenges such values need to overcome (the particular danger signs which they perceive as “flashing”).

2) The IPCR Journal/Newsletter (Winter 2010-2011 issue) (http://bit.ly/l02K80) includes: a 9 page introduction to The IPCR Initiative, a 15 step outline for community visioning initiatives, 8 sample questions for a preliminary survey, a list of 117 related fields of activity, an introduction to the concept “Peace Returned on Resources Invested”, key roles that can be played by philanthropy (especially relating to “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”), and a 9 page section titled “A Call to Women’s Organizations Associated with Peacebuilding and Philanthropy”.

3) The IPCR Initiative also offers a document titled “39 Suggestions for Preliminary Survey Questions (as preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives)” (http://bit.ly/j7f5PY). Preliminary surveys (circulated to at least 150 key leaders from a variety of fields of activity) can help residents appreciate the need for a Community Visioning Initiative, and the need for many “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”.

4) The IPCR Initiative has expanded the concept of “Community Teaching and Learning Centers” (created by “Teachers Without Borders”) so that such local community points of entry function as information centers, resource centers, locations for workshops, and locations for the training of “teacher-leaders”. [Two articles which highlight the potential of “Community Teaching and Learning Centers” are “Community Education for a Full Range of Peacebuilding Roles: Ecovillage Design Curriculum” (http://bit.ly/l77uMK) (by this writer) and “Opinion: (Open) Letter to the New Education Secretary” (from Worldwatch Institute, December 19, 2008) (http://bit.ly/kAqR28)

5) The IPCR Initiative’s advocacy for Community Visioning Initiatives and \"Community Teaching and Learning Centers\" provides many opportunities for local newspapers to contribute very valuable community services. For example: making preliminary survey results accessible; carrying out ongoing community specific surveys; highlighting inspirational role models and initiatives associated with the 117 related fields of activity; describing workshop activity in the “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”; reporting on the planning, implementation, evaluation, and follow up stages associated with Community Visioning Initiatives; etc.

6) In addition, the job fairs which come at the end of the kind of Community Visioning Initiatives advocated by The IPCR Initiative provide opportunities for all key stakeholders in the community (businesses, organizations, institutions, government, etc) to demonstrate their upgraded awareness—and their interest in the welfare of the community—by offering and facilitating new employment opportunities.

7) The IPCR Initiative also advocates for sister community relationships of a service-oriented nature. For example, communities with the resources to do so can be matched up with communities in other countries where there has been well documented calls for assistance with basic human needs. These “sister community” relationships can create service work capable of uniting diverse communities of people, and a variety of opportunities for person-to-person peacebuilding. [Much work has already been done along these lines by Sister Cities International (at http://www.sister-cities.org/ ).]

IPCR Outreach 2011

Believing there is an urgent need to build bridges between diverse communities of people, this writer (founder and outreach coordinator, Stefan Pasti) has been sending out summary information about The IPCR Initiative (“A Four Page Summary of The IPCR Initiative”) (http://bit.ly/iZJz80) (also attached to this post), and encouraging people to make best use of whatever IPCR material they find which is of value to them (all IPCR documents and resources are accessible for free at www.ipcri.net ) (“The IPCR Copyright Policy”-- http://bit.ly/kSE618). There is more information about “IPCR Outreach 2011” at the bottom of The IPCR Initiative website homepage.

How Twitter Can Help

As a tribute to the networking potential of Twitter, this writer affirms that he has discovered many appropriate recipients for “IPCR Outreach 2011” by doing searches on Twitter. In particular, once some related organizations and individuals have been identified, one can search through both who those people and organizations are “following”, and the people and organizations who are “following” them. This writers’ efforts along these lines has resulted in a public list accessible from his Twitter profile page titled “For IPCR Outreach 2011”. Readers of this message who take the time to scan that list (currently referencing 167 people and organizations) will see that there are many people involved in related fields of activity who could be encouraged to collaborate to create 1000 Community Visioning Initiatives in communities around the world (one of the goals of “IPCR Outreach 2011”—1000 Community Visioning Initiatives can create much solution-oriented momentum).

Encouraging Innovation and Creativity Can Lead to Many Different Kinds of Successful Model Projects

It may also be important to be emphasize in this post just how much of an “open source” The IPCR Initiative is. As part of such an emphasis, it is worth repeating the first paragraph here:

“There is much that can be done to generate goodwill and promote peace that has not yet been done. Having this conviction—and seeing the potential for much compassion and much solution-oriented activity in many spiritual traditions and many fields of activity relating to peacebuilding, community revitalization, and ecological sustainability—has led this writer to explore ways of actualizing such potential. The result of those explorations has been made accessible at the website of The IPCR Initiative, at www.ipcri.net .”

The IPCR Initiative website is also a kind of record of this writer’s attempts to discover what will help people get to “I see it now” moments about this “constellation” of initiatives approach to peacebuilding and community revitalization. However, once a pilot project (of any kind—see “Brief Descriptions of The Eight IPCR Concepts” at http://bit.ly/mHjXth) is underway, the IPCR Initiative does not require that any such pilot projects use The IPCR Initiative name, or adhere to any common mission statement, or list of shared goals. In other words, any community of people using IPCR ideas or resources will have no obligation to adhere to a “brand” message or even reference or make attribution to IPCR resources which inspired their efforts. They can build, adopt, change, modify, and otherwise create their own way forward—with their own name for the initiative, their own website content, their own stated goals, etc. By encouraging innovation and creativity in this way many different experiments can be made, and there will be more chances that many communities of people will arrive at many different kinds of successful model projects.

Do Readers Understand the Potential of This Approach? (Any Comments, Suggestions, Recommendations?)

The purpose of this message is to offer this information about Community Visioning Initiatives, The IPCR Initiative, and “IPCR Outreach 2011”—and also to ask: Do readers understand the potential of this approach to peacebuilding and community revitalization? Do readers see how this approach might be useful?

By adopting parts or all of the peacebuilding and community revitalization approach advocated by The IPCR Initiative, common narratives which are local community specific and regional specific can be “grown organically”. Such narratives are much more likely to be aware of and responsive to local specific needs and challenges, more likely to maximize citizen participation and create solution-oriented momentum, and more likely to inspire commitments of time, energy, and financial support. In addition, even if there were not many critical challenges ahead, this kind of community building process identifies many useful civic skills and community resources which would be valuable for community residents to cultivate. Do readers see how this process represents a way to grow a common narrative “organically”?

This writer encourages comments, suggestions, recommendations, etc. of any kind, so that he (and others) may learn more about where gaps in understanding are relating to this approach to peacebuilding, and what can be done to remedy those deficiencies. More and more people are coming to the realization that overcoming the challenges of our times will require problem solving on a scale most of us have never known before. This writer gladly and willingly contributes time, energy, and money to make the resources and documents of The IPCR Initiative accessible to those people who might benefit from them.

With Kind Regards,

Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator
The IPCR Initiative