Economic Profile System, Headwaters Economics
Customize and download socioeconomic reports for U.S. communities, counties, and states. The Economic Profile System is a free, easy-to-use tool that provides access to 17 socioeconomic reports. Customized reports are available for U.S. communities, counties, and states and can be downloaded as Excel or PDF files. Economic Profile System reports are based on credible public data sources such […]
Engagement Wayfinder, USFWS
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Engagement Wayfinder is an orientation to public engagement. Public engagement enables the government to incorporate public concerns, needs, and values into projects and decisions. It is sometimes used interchangeably with other terms like public participation, stakeholder engagement, and community engagement. Central to all of these terms is the idea […]
Four Network Principles for Collaboration Success
Despite high hopes, hard work, and significant investment, the social sector has experienced countless partnerships that have failed to live up to expectations. How are some collaborations able to achieve spectacular results while others fail spectacularly? This article identifies a set of four counterintuitive principles that are critical to collaboration success and offers insights for […]
Coaching People Through the Change Curve
The Change Curve is a popular and powerful model used to understand the stages of personal transition and organisational change. It helps you predict how people will react to change, so that you can help them make their own personal transitions, and make sure that they have the help and support they need. Personality underpins […]
USDA Forest Service Handover Memo
The Forest Service’s handover memo process enables an outgoing agency leader to share information with their replacement. The challenge of rotating Forest Service line officers is a well-known barrier to community and forest‐level collaboration. It takes time to develop good relationships, and when a key agency contact is transferred, a collaborative effort can stall out […]
Bringing Social Values to Wildlife Conservation Decisions
Sustainable conservation of wildlife is contingent upon the human context in which it occurs. Humans regularly exert a powerful influence on the survival and persistence of species, yet social-science information is used only sporadically in conservation decisions. Using data obtained from a survey of 46,894 US residents, we developed and applied a spatially explicit “sociocultural […]
Risk Communication and Public Participation
The course is designed to teach participants to better communicate risk, understand and engage various publics, and learn to use the public participation planning process. This interactive workshop teaches participants strategic communication, risk communication and public participation principles and strategies relevant to any issue. Participants learn how to identify missions, goals and objectives; identify and […]
America’s Wildlife Values: The Social Context of Wildlife Management in the U.S.
The purpose of the America’s Wildlife Values Project was to assess the social context of wildlife management in the U.S. to understand the growing conflict around wildlife management. It is the first study of its kind to describe how U.S. residents within and across all 50 states think about wildlife, and how changing perspectives shape […]
Elements of an Effective Apology
An apology is a powerful means of reconciliation and restoring trust. However, sometimes even well-intentioned apologies can exacerbate a conflict. It may be helpful to consider what elements to include in a statement of apology to make it most effective and constructive. © 1999 Marsha L. Wagner, Columbia University
Interest-Based Problem Solving
What is the difference between positions and interests? Positions are typically publicly stated outcomes that someone seeks and may be fairly extreme or absolute. Interests, by contrast, are reasons behind the positions, are initially not openly expressed, and may be far more nuanced than positions. Moving a dialogue beyond merely exchanging positions and into the […]
Working at the Speed of Trust
Individuals can learn to “see” trust and its measurable impact, which allows them to build credibility, strengthen relationships, and work collaboratively to deliver essential results. When trust is low, people become suspicious, guard communication, speculate, and disengage. As a result, productivity grinds to a crawl, and the costs—whether social, emotional, or financial—increase. We call these […]
Strategic Stakeholder Engagement
In this course, students will identify stakeholder needs, conduct environmental analysis, identify stakeholder opportunities which align with USACE capabilities, determine the types of USACE assistance the stakeholder most needs, and create an account plan. This course helps students create account plans that help build and maintain productive partnerships. The course content focuses on stakeholders, their […]