The implementation of strategies to bring about significant community change rarely takes place in a short time frame. As you build capacity to bring about change, be aware of the need to generate resources to sustain your strategies, beyond simply the expense of carrying out an intervention. To do this, it is important to invest in capacity, teach people how to assess needs, build resources, and effectively plan and implement prevention interventions to create the systems necessary to support these activities going forward.
Sustaining your work includes both institutionalizing strategies and finding additional financial support for them―both of which should be planned for by the time you begin to implement activities.
Institutionalizing Your Work
This is a long-term process—it may take years to build a comprehensive solution.
One key strategy is to form a working group of staff and coalition partners to focus on sustainability planning:
- Finding ways to make the policies, practices, and procedures you have established become successfully rooted in the community
- Considering the existing systems and frameworks relevant to your work, which can be stepping stones to eventual policy changes
- Looking for ways to integrate your work into existing departments within a municipality or into other organizations
Getting key stakeholders involved from the beginning and providing leadership opportunities can inspire them to become champions who will fight to sustain your activities; the more invested your partners become, the more likely they will be to support your group’s activities in the long term.
Finding Additional Resources
Planning for financial stability involves figuring out strategies and action steps for your group to obtain and grow the diverse resources—human, financial, material, and technological—needed to sustain your efforts over time. Additional resources may include in-kind support, volunteer staff, commitments for shared resources from other organizations, or another organization who might take on a project begun by your group.
More on sustainability is available here.