Collaboration and partnerships are increasingly important to sustainable and resilient businesses, communities, and public agencies. ECO integrates our scientific, communications, community building and organizational experience into a seamless toolkit for developing collaborative solutions. The result is enhanced ability to meet any of your environmental, growth and development, and organizational challenges.

The nature of collaboration is expressed within a dynamic balance of cooperation and competition. The organization, public outreach and resource planning work of ECO Resource Group integrates transparent collaboration and consensus building with the tension of differing ideas to create common ground for sustainability among stakeholders. We define community broadly as a collection of people with relationships built upon common factors. These factors may include place, culture, business, experience, knowledge, spiritual beliefs or others. In the increasing open world of business innovation through participatory decision-making, ECO Resource Group can help you attract and integrate new ideas to build upon the strength of collaboration.

Community Collaboration and Partnerships
Community Connections
Community Visioning
Integrated Communications Strategies

Community Collaboration and Partnerships

Integrating diverse community perspectives into government and business decision-making is an important component of effective, sustainable policy development. Creating partnerships among private and public organizations leverages financial, human and technological resources. The ECO Resource Group strengthens the resilience of collaborative plans and partnerships through innovative methods to educate and engage stakeholders regarding issues such as:

• Land use
• Restoration
• Shoreline management
• Energy use
• Flood control
• Wildlife protection
• Watershed and basin planning
• Disaster preparedness
• Transportation
• Hazard mitigation
• Education
• Social services
• Economic development
• Community planning

To leverage the knowledge and capability of diverse groups, ECO Resource Group creates customized approaches for collaboration that effectively integrate new ideas and science with policy and community needs. Our interactive techniques actively engage stakeholders in the success of programs, creating new opportunities for communication while fostering sustainable partnerships.

Tools

• Coordination and facilitation of public meetings, workshops, focus groups, advisory committees and task forces
• Situation Assessments
• Survey design, implementation and analysis
• Monitoring public outreach effectiveness
• Inter-agency coordination
• Graphical recording and mapping
• Electronic democracy, internet strategies and design
• Community Networking
• Media and public relations
• Design and development of newsletters, public notices, fact sheets, meeting summaries, briefing materials, displays and other printed materials

(Back to Top)

Community Connections

We have developed a variety of tools and interactive processes, which together provide a flexible adaptive model for connecting people in dynamic social networks. Community Connections uses Connection Tools to customize Integrated Processes that lead the community and its attendant organizations to self-supporting actions, further supported by Trainings that create self-sufficiency for even stronger connections and relationships.

The tools, like the communities they are applied to, reflect a diverse mix of knowledge and experience. The tools were built with input from experts in the fields of leadership, management sciences, ecology, systems sciences, facilitation, conflict resolution, public involvement, and education. In addition, each tool benefits from the wisdom of the communities with whom ECO has worked.

Community Connections is designed to go beyond the elicitation and recording of public opinion that is the focus of most public involvement, education and outreach efforts. Community Connections draws out the inherent knowledge of the community and integrates it with technical, scientific and organizational knowledge to gain clarity, understanding and sustainable collaboration.

(Back to Top)

Community Visioning

Crucial to the success of community-building and collaboration is the ability to develop, express and hold commonly defined visions, values and goals. For all types of planning, the vision, values and goals build the basis for common understanding among community and organizational members. ECO Resource Group works with communities of all types to create and foster trust, openness and honest expression. Our interactions allow community members to express their most important values and vision for the future, whether they relate to human and natural resources, community or organizational development. Using a visioning and values identification process coupled with other tools such as scenario planning, ECO Resource Group is able to guide community members through a process that integrates differing values and visions into a common knowledge of what the community needs, turning visioning and consensus building into action.

(Back to Top)

Integrated Communications Strategies

Building effective Community Connections requires that organizations which provide context and structure within the community are able to effectively communicate both internally and externally. To be responsive to both organizational and community information needs, an iterative and flexible communications strategy must be established and maintained. Using an integrated communications flow model, ECO can assess areas of weakness and opportunity. The results will create and assist you in managing reflexive communication processes and techniques that integrate multiple communication technologies with informal/formal discussions to address the needs of a wide range of stakeholders.

(Back to Top)