Community Mobilization &
Multistakeholder Engagement
CMS Road Show – Luzon
PhilDHRAA Partnership Center
29 to 31 August 2013

Learning Objectives
At the end of this session, you should be able to:
 Demonstrate increased knowledge of the principles
of and key steps in community mobilization;
 Apply some tools for engaging different community
stakeholders in collective action;
 Identify tasks in involving communities and some
strategies to facilitate stakeholder engagement.
Your Idea of a “Community”
What comes to mind when you
first hear the word “community”?
What is a Community?
 A set of people that share any or all of the following:
 Territory
 Resources
 Language
 Culture
 Religion
 Occupation
 Interests
 Etc.
 We all belong to a community.
 What are some of the communities you belong to?
What is a Community?
 People are the heart of a community.
 Heterogeneous
 Diverse needs
 Different motivations
 Diverse skills
 Various resources
 How do we bring them together and harness what they have
to offer?
Community Mobilization
 The process of building social relationships in pursuit
of common community interests.
 Increases participatory decision-making processes by
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


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bringing diverse stakeholders into a common process
Expands inclusion of often marginalized populations,
such as women, youth, persons with disabilities, the
elderly, and religious or ethnic minorities
Depends on local resources, both human and material
Fosters stronger relationships between local
government, businesses, community members and
CBO/NGOs
Ensures local ownership of development
Promotes a more active and informed citizenry
Community Mobilization:
Some Principles
 Participation
 When people are involved from design to
implementation and assessment, ownership is high
 Context sensitivity
 Local solutions to local problems
 Empowerment, not dependence
 Communities as actors, not recipients
Prepare: Get to
know the
community
DO!
Sustain
WHAT,
WHERE,
WHEN?
Steps in
Community
Mobilization
Develop & execute
a community
action plan
WHO?
Involve
stakeholders
WHY?
Issue analysis &
community
visioning
1. Get to Know the Community
 Core area of community development

E.g., Livelihood, Maternal health, Public education
 Identify a common issue that the community can get
involved in.
 Gather information on the community & the issue by:

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Talking to people in the community
Talking to community leaders
Conducting surveys, FGDs (formal)
 Plan for a community gathering or dialogue on the
issue.*
2. Involve Stakeholders
 Decide who is
crucial to involve
 Stakeholders: groups and individuals
who
 Primary: are directly involved in the
issue; can affect or are affected by the
issue
 Secondary: intermediaries; can help
facilitate awareness and understanding;
can mobilize additional support or
resources
 Be inclusive
 Core group of
actors
 Roles
 E.g., Who
would be a
good
infomediary/lea
der?
3. Organize around an issue
 Identify and prioritize current underlying
conditions
 What are the current problems in public education
in the school? (Context)
 What causes these problems? (Cause)
 Which of these can we do something about?
(Priorities)
 Develop a community vision
 How does a good public education system in our
community look like?
 What key changes/improvements are in place?
3. Organize around an issue
 Vision - summarize your community’s dream for the
future. The vision should be:
 Easy to communicate to potential new members.
 Uplifting and inspiring, clearly communicating your
hopes for your community.
 A reflection of the perspective of the community it
represents.
 Mission - state your community mission. It should
include:
 A statement of what it is going to do and why.
 Widely inclusive language to avoid limiting potential
new members and strategies with which to bring
about the vision.
3. Organize around an issue
 Community Road
Map
4. Community Action Planning
 What strategies & activities are needed?
 Awareness raising
 Fundraising
 Capacity building
 Who can contribute what?
 Resources
 Expertise
 Timeline
 How do we know we’ve achieved our objectives?
 Measure , evaluate
 Keeping track of achievements builds confidence
5. Sustain
 Community planning on how to sustain efforts
 Commitments and roles
 Next steps: scale up/expand or repeat?
 Continuous capacity building requirements
Your Role as Community Mobilizer
 You as leader
 Finding leaders in the
community
WHICH FACILITATES GREATER COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP AND
INVOLVEMENT?
Multi-Stakeholder Engagement
 Key Tasks as CMS Area Coordinators
 Identify school community stakeholders to involve
(macro)
 Facilitating stakeholder participation in identifying
and solving issues (micro)
Bringing Stakeholders on Board:
Mapping
1. The PowerInterest Grid
(Bryson, 1995)
 Power to influence
the issue
 High
 Low
 Interest in the issue
 High
 Low
Bringing Stakeholders on Board:
Mapping
Keep satisfied;
Meet their
needs
Key Players;
Manage closely
1. The PowerInterest Grid
(Bryson, 1995)
 Power to influence
the issue
Minimal Effort
Keep informed;
Show
consideration
 High
 Low
 Interest in the issue
 High
 Low
Bringing Stakeholders on Board:
Mapping
2. ImpactAttitude Grid
(Riley & Weintraub)
 Impact, or influence
 High
 Low
 Attitude
 Positive
 Negative
Top 3-5 Action
Points
high
*
x
–
x
*
+
x
*
x
x
low
Exercise: Mapping School Stakeholders
 Form 2 groups
 Identify 5-8 key stakeholders in CMS communities
 Parents, students, school administrator, DepEd, local
media, infomediary, teachers, etc.
 Group 1: Using the Power-Interest Grid, map
stakeholders and identify one action per quadrant
 Group 2: Using the Impact-Attitude Grid, map the
stakeholders and identify three action points
 Assign a reporter.
 Three (3) minutes to report
Stakeholder Participation
Stakeholder Participation
 You’ve identified your key stakeholders…
 NOW WHAT?
 Plan activities to involve key stakeholders
 Keep them involved, from start to finish
 Allow them to find solutions to their problems
 Empowerment is not about telling them what to do or
doing things for them but building their capacity to do
Stakeholder Participation:
Scenarios
 Scenario 1: The school year is about to start but
there are no funds to get the school ready. The
classrooms and school grounds are dirty and the
furniture are not in their proper places.
Talk to the principal and compel her to find funds
for cleaners.
b. Clean the entire school yourself.
c. Mobilize school community members to volunteer
to get the school ready.
a.
Stakeholder Participation:
Scenarios
 Scenario 2: You want to set up regular data
updating activities for CMS in a new school.
However, you live in a different city and it’s costly
for you to keep traveling to the school to coordinate
the activities. What’s the best way to empower the
school community to conduct monitoring?
What are concrete ways
to get community
stakeholders to
participate during…
 Planning sessions
 Community dialogue
 Problem-solving sessions
Stakeholder Participation:
Strategies
 Brainstorming
 Generate as many ideas
 Suspend judgment
 Encourage creativity
 Everyone pitches in
 Sample Process
 Individuals write down ideas
 Ideas are posted and similar ideas grouped together
 Group reviews ideas
 Enhances ideas
 Adds other ideas
Stakeholder Participation:
Strategies
 Stepladder technique
 Individuals to small groups to big group
 Allows every individual to contribute
 Results in a few, well thought out ideas
 Sample Process
 Each individual writes down an idea
 Form groups of two and enhance the ideas
 The process is repeated in groups of three, four, etc.
until only two groups remain
 Big group comes together to share and finalize ideas
Stakeholder Participation:
Strategies
 Contributions Assessment
 Begins with what each individual can contribute
 Action-oriented
 Good way of securing commitment and active
involvement of members
 Sample Process
 Each individual writes down 1-2 things they
contribute
 These are posted and shared to the big group
 Group constructs a workplan based on
commitments and adds what else can be done
Roleplay Exercise
 Problem: How can we increase awareness on the lack
of textbooks in the school?
 Roles
 Area coordinator (Facilitator)
 Local DepEd representative
 Parent leader
 Student representative
 Local media
 Local business owner
 Decide on a strategy for facilitating stakeholder
participation: brainstorming, stepladder, contributions
assessment
Roleplay Exercise
 Reflect on your experience.
 Did everyone participate? Why or why not?
 How did the process ensure participation of
stakeholders?
 What was the role of the facilitator in the process?
Stakeholder Participation:
Tips for Community Mobilizers
 Compel: Anchor participation on their interests
 E.g., Parents want their children to have access to
good quality education
 Invite stakeholders to bring in their resources and
knowledge to the process
 E.g., Local businesses can donate resources to
schools, as part of their CSR program
 Facilitate local participation on coming up to
solutions to problems
Other Activities to Involve Stakeholders in
 Joint Context and Stakeholders Analysis
 Awareness Raising Campaigns
 IEC, Fun run, Fiesta, Word-of-mouth
 Monitoring activities
 Data updating
 Multi-stakeholder Problem-Solving Sessions
 Resource Generation
 Fundraising
Salamat!