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International Community Development Lab (ICDL):  A Community Perspectives Model

 

Community development is understood differently by different stakeholders.  In fact, everyone has individual interests when it comes to defining community.  A business person may define their community as their sector, industry, or business type.  A politician may define community as a district, municipality, state, or country.  An educator may define community as a school or school district.  A marketing executive may define a community as a select demographic.  A religious leader may define community as a parish or diocese.  For most of us, our community is comprised of our family, friends, and neighbors.  

 

Simply stated, community can be categorized in many ways, causing a multiplicity of definitions of community development and its function.  Business people have come to understand community development as profits, while educators emphasize teachers, students, facilities and the development of intellectual capital.  The mainstream view holds that community development is simply the construction of housing or the enhancement of the tax base, the creation of jobs or the attraction of new business.  Though community development is frequently viewed from only one such perspective, it truly flourishes via the successful interdependence of many perspectives.

 

Any city from around the world is a community comprised of its residents, civic organizations, businesses, schools, and government agencies.  The key to its successful development is in the strategic combination of the thoughts and perspectives of all of these community members.

 

How do you develop and incorporate all of these perspectives?  How do you develop businesses? Schools? Civic organizations? Public Policies? How do you develop an unprecedented and comprehensive understanding of your community?  How do you utilize this understanding to strategically develop a plan and implement accountability mechanisms that will take your community to new heights?

 

The International Community Development Lab (ICDL) is an initiative that attempts to help communities worldwide address each of these questions.  It recognizes that the strategic facilitation of each perspective can contribute to a community’s holistic development (See Figure 1.1).

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