Our Top Ten Tips

Here are our Top tips for getting started in community-led development.

Mapping Community Strengths and Assets

Taking a strengths-based approach is one of the core principles of community-led development. This resource describes how to take a strength- or asset-based approach and is a useful tool to help explore and capture the gifts, talents and strengths in your community.

Tensions, Learning and Adaptation

Leaders can help create and model a non-defensive climate of learning, reflection and inquiry where people can give and receive feedback and find a way forward. Effective leaders take time to reflect on their own thoughts, assumptions, feelings and behaviours. This allows them to understand the part they can play, and what is beyond their control or is not a priority to try to change right now.

The Leadership as Learning Framework describes four interwoven dimensions of change: personal, relational, structural and cultural. These are also identified in our Quadrants of Change framework as important areas to pay attention to if we want to impact and sustain transformation in communities.

Leadership is a bit like riding a surfboard on an always moving sea. Sometimes the tides ebb and flow gently and simple habits like being open to feedback help us re-balance. We can go from vulnerable “I don’t know” moments back to our strong selves with relative ease. Other times, bigger waves dump us into stormier waters. Rip-currents might even push us towards the edge of chaos. We come up against the darker sides, the challenges, the not so helpful behaviours, attitudes, and ways of thinking and acting. To escape from drowning in rip-currents we have to swim in not so obvious directions, finding our inner strengths and other resources around us, to come up with responses that we may never have thought of before. While it’s not a comfortable place to be in, the collision of these lighter and darker sides actually provides a creative space for innovation, learning and dynamic change.

The centre column of the Leadership as Learning framework reminds us of some of the resources we can draw on to lead us through the normal tides, waves and rip-currents of community leadership. The inner two columns on either side of the centre show some of the constructive leadership behaviours, attitudes and actions we can apply in the normal movements of the regular tides. These might look like polar opposites, but each has their time, place and use.

The outer two columns identify more destructive responses that can happen if we take positive leadership responses to any extreme. For example, the dark side of being strong can be a big, controlling ego; the dark side of vulnerable can be paralysing self-doubt. The framework encourages us to not get stuck in any one place but to see this as a sea that needs to keep moving to stay alive, learning, growing and innovating. As leaders, that means being aware and constantly adapting to what’s needed for each new wave or situation.

Let’s take a brief look at each of these four layers, helping you explore this framework with some reflective questions about what you can do to grow:

  • your own leadership
  • the leadership of others around you
  • the leadership of organisations you work in
  • the leadership of communities you live and work in

Each section includes a fictional story to illustrate the ideas offered. You can also read some of our Inspiring stories that highlight the many amazing things that communities are already doing.

Here we try to unpack some of the back story of the leadership challenges and responses that often sit behind such fantastic results. We hope these stories and ideas will support you to work with the complexities and messiness of CLD work and encourage you to hang in there to make things happen.

The Personal Thread: Leading Ourselves

Take a moment to look at the personal threads identified in the framework. What resonates with you?

Common fears that hold people back from being active citizens or taking on leadership roles include personal fears of change, of not knowing what to do, of failure and loss of face. The challenge is to not stay stuck in these fears. We can enhance our leadership by asking reflective questions to identity our fears or sticking points. This can help to open ourselves up to the possibilities for changing the situation.

How could you think, engage or act differently in your personal practice to ensure that you:

  • keep the good aspects of your humble self-doubt and feel confident that you will find your strengths as you step out and take action, despite your fears of the unknown? What if you turned your fears into questions you wanted to explore as a curious, inquiring learner? What do you most need to receive or give, offer or accept? What do you need to sustain you on the journey?
  • maintain your self-confidence and an awareness of others who may feel reluctant to help when you are so competently handling everything? Have you got the courage to let go of some tasks and ask others to help, even if they might do things differently to you? Even if things might not happen at all? Are you being too responsible – or maybe not clear enough about intentionally sharing power and control?
  • have regular time for reflection about recent events, e.g. what you are grateful for that has happened today; what your intentions were for the day; how you wanted to be; what you notice about your behaviours, thoughts, questions, feelings today; what your intentions are for tomorrow. How can you choose to respond to enable your own and others’ leadership? Are you being too hard or too easy on yourself? Remember the power of small action to produce big outcomes.

Peter was helping get a community garden underway. It was exciting at first just doing it. He was confident helping build planter boxes, planting, weeding and tending the vegetables. But it soon became clear the more complex part was building good relationships between the people involved and with others who wanted to join in.

Peter and two mates from the garden went off to talk to another local community garden group to share experiences and pick their brains. They decided to visit each other’s gardens on alternate months for practical working bee help and some chats over a cuppa about what each garden group was learning about running a great garden. They now feel more confident to work through organisational issues – not just the veggie growing – because they are not alone. They get new ideas and insights from each other and in between times share cool stuff they find on the web and Facebook.

Three key ingredients that support our leadership learning

CLD leadership work focuses on creating an environment where everyone is encouraged to contribute their diverse strengths towards the leading, doing, thinking and learning. At least three key ingredients can help support anyone’s leadership learning.

  • exposure to new ideas that stretch our thinking beyond the familiar (e.g. from something we read or hear or a workshop we go to). Typically this provides 10% of our learning
  • opportunities to try out new practices (e.g. behaviours, skills, tools, approaches in practical situations that stretch us beyond our established habits). This provides 70% of our learning
  • safe, high trust learning spaces to reflect with our peers (e.g. about what we are all learning from each situation and where we can still grow further). This provides 20% of our learning

Food for thought…

What’s missing or needs rebalancing around these three factors for you or your community group?

What simple steps could you take to reach out and create opportunities for the missing ingredients that you or your group need(s)?

The relational thread: leading with and alongside others

Take a moment to look at the relational threads identified in the framework. What resonates for you?

CLD doesn’t happen if it’s just one person with a vision being the expert and everyone else following. We do need people with bold visions who often create or promote change. But the sustainability of community-led change comes from building a shared vision over time. It happens one conversation or action at a time, with many voices and perspectives, using many different ways of making things happen. CLD leadership challenges us to find ways to be truly inclusive, and grow the leadership of the many, not just the few. Sometimes we’re overloaded, drop some balls and find we have left a useful gap for others to step into. Whether by accident or intentionally, leaders need to keep moving between leading out front, walking alongside or stepping right back to leave space for others to lead and meaningfully contribute.

What could you do to strengthen respectful, shared leadership in the CLD spaces you are working in

  • to truly honour and grow the diverse strengths of the community you work in? How do you check you are really hearing what others are saying, what they are meaning, what they are offering? How do you offer encouragement for others to step into the unknown and see their potential?
  • to ensure you don’t lose your own voice, while working hard to listen to, empathise with, understand and include others’ views? When do you stand up for some really important principle or purpose and when do you hold back because it’s more about your own ego or need for control?
  • to ensure you don’t get locked into them and us thinking? How truly open are you or your group to other ways of thinking?
  • to keep noticing where you need to lead from at different times and places – out front, walking alongside, from behind, or stepping right out?
Resources that help us to shore

A few years ago Peta started community pot luck dinners in her neighbourhood. After a while, they were taking place four times a year, and attracting up to 100 people each time. Peta was quietly proud of the way she had slowly stepped back from being the driver for getting these dinners started. She involved others in looking after different things like publicity, the kitchen and activities for the children. She was consciously trying not to be a one woman band by taking responsibility for everything. Those she was actively encouraging were now stepping up to keep these dinners going.

Then one night there was a tense discussion in the kitchen. A large group of students who had recently moved into the neighbourhood turned up at the dinner without bringing any contribution and then ate before other families, meaning some missed out on getting enough to eat. Some people felt strongly that they needed to say something to the students. Others felt they should just be inclusive and accepting of everyone as they are. Peta listened for a while, then one of the group turned to her and asked what she thought.

Peta wanted to shift the conversation, so she asked a powerful question: “What could we do to make sure everyone in this community is welcome here, whether or not they can bring food, AND that whatever is brought is shared?” The group soon agreed that they needed to communicate these values in what they said at each dinner when blessing the food and welcoming people. That night they made the students welcome, encouraged them to come again and shared the story of how the dinners got started.

Peta reflected on how she had needed to take a different leadership role this time. It would have been tempting to just express her opinion. Instead, by asking a powerful question, she was making her voice heard, and helping the group learn to work through issues and get beyond them and us thinking. At the next dinner, the students returned and brought pizzas without anyone having to ask them to contribute.

The cultural thread: how we work with each unique community context

Take a moment to look at the cultural threads identified in the framework. What resonates for you?

Children wearing traditional Pasifika clothing.

It’s tempting to think we could find out what works and do exactly the same thing across lots of communities. But each community has its own unique context, history, culture, stories, identity, complexities and ways of getting things done.

We can’t apply solutions that have worked elsewhere and expect them to work. We need to build home-grown strategies from local relationships that bring knowledge of the strengths and complexities of each local context. We also need to keep sharing lessons and stories from one community to another.

It’s often the culture around how people have worked together that we can learn most from, not just what they have achieved. How did they identify where the energy was? What were the things that failed and why didn’t they succeed? How did they stay resourceful to keep everyone on the waka through the ups and downs of their journey?

People of different cultures brainstorming at a faith based workshop.

What needs to shift to break unhelpful patterns in the culture of your community initiative?

  • How involved are those with the lived experience (e.g. local residents or people affected by the issues or change you are working on)? Are things mainly led by agencies and professionals? What actions could encourage more of a ‘doing with’ than a ‘doing for’ or ‘doing to’ culture? Who needs to be more engaged with the decision-making? How could that happen?
  • To what extent is “the way we do things around here” named, known or discussed? What are the positive and negative aspects of the existing community culture? Has the group ever had a discussion about core values and behaviours/attitudes they would like to model as a way of people working together? How are those expectations communicated to others? How do people deal with behaviour that is inappropriate or unsafe?
  • Do people understand the shared purpose, the processes, the next steps? Is there a strong culture of collaborative inquiry to shape these so they are really grounded in the community’s ideas and owned by a wide and diverse group of people?
  • Is there a healthy tension between strengths-based thinking and using gaps//failures as opportunities to find new community assets and for new people to contribute? Are founding leaders leaving space for others?
  • How do you make the most of uncertainty, messiness, diversity, tensions? How could you reframe these uncomfortable spaces as key opportunities or energy sources for learning, innovation, new approaches and new possibilities?

Sione, a youth worker at a local church, engaged with some young people in the neighbourhood who had dropped out of school. At first, Sione just hung out with them. Over time he earned their trust and came to understand their way of seeing and doing things and the young people started to share their aspirations. Together they decided it would be great to have a place to call their own, and Sione agreed to ask the church if their vacant house could be used, now the church no longer employed an assistant minister.

The church council agreed it was a great idea, and had potential to be a Youth Hub for the city, but they didn’t have the capacity to manage it. They suggested giving the oversight of running the house to a governance group made up of key church, education and social service agencies in the town who had a lot of professional experience in working with youth in the city. They felt this would provide an excellent focal point for inter-agency collaboration around youth development, as well as property management.

Sione went back to the young people to share the good news that they had got the house, but he was surprised by their responses. What’s this Youth Hub idea? That wasn’t our idea! Why would we trust those people on their committee – some of them kicked us out of school! They wouldn’t listen to our ideas. Why don’t they trust us to look after it all?

Sione believed there was some common ground between the ideas of the young people and the church council, but he had a big job ahead to create a bridge between such different ways of doing things. So, he asked the young people: “If you trusted the church or any committee to really listen to you, what would you tell them about your vision for this house? What would you see happening there? How would people treat each other? What would be needed to make this a cool, safe and creative space you really wanted to be involved in?”

Sione and the young people invited the church council to share fish and chips with them the next week. It was a bit tense at the beginning, but as they discussed Sione’s questions, and listened to each other, they started to see how they could make it work. Their most important decision was that the young people and the church council would work alongside each other to decide on the next steps together.

The structural threads: working with sound and flexible organisational processes

Take a moment to look at the structural threads identified in the framework. What resonates for you?

CLD takes us out of our silos and our assumptions about how to do things effectively. CLD often invites us into different thinking spaces or experimental actions that go across and beyond traditional role boundaries. For example, it might mean bringing together governance, management and staff for a focused discussion, or it could mean that different sector organisations and people of different status are brought together who wouldn’t usually meet.

Post Its on a wall.

There are times when writing down decisions to form plans, job descriptions, agreements, diagrams and reports really helps make clear what needs to be done, by who, how, and later, the results that were achieved. It’s great to have a clear action plan that everyone can agree to and get on with.

There are also plenty of times when discussions have no immediately visible outcome. It can feel messy, complex and slow for new thinking or actions to emerge. Investment in relationships, trust and understanding is needed before any concrete plans or action can emerge. Once plans, systems or structures are put in place, the challenge is to make sure they aren’t too fixed. We can’t fully anticipate the ripple effects of all the actions we try out in the CLD space. Some will fly beyond our expectations, others won’t get lift off.

We have to stay flexible, carefully listening and noticing what is emerging and planning next steps as we go. We also need to be open to adapting any structures, plans and processes we put in place. That’s because CLD is complex, and takes us into unknown, unfamiliar territory where answers emerge out of our korero (conversations), our whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building), our mahi (trying things out) and our ongoing ako (learning with each other).

What structures, systems, processes or plans are useful in your community context:

  • to identify what the group has in common in terms of shared identity, vision, values, culture and what can be left diverse, flexible and emergent in terms of perspectives, pathways and plans towards the vision?
  • to support regular individual and collective reflective practice to keep learning from what you are doing, the patterns you are noticing and to make sense of the best way forward?
  • to manage power dynamics and shift unhelpful patterns of behaviour or attitudes that might be limiting energy and discouraging shared leadership?
  • to avoid overly fixed roles, plans, boundaries and structures to enable flexible exchange of information, assets and energy across all who want to engage in the kaupapa?
Welcome Bay's first community event

Jane, recently retired, moved to a small rural town to be closer to her mokopuna. Soon after she arrived, NZ Post decided to withdraw the town’s only Postshop and Kiwibank services. This not only cut essential services but threatened the viability of the only local store. Jane went along to a community meeting attended by many locals, and found herself offering to help on the committee that was going to lobby NZ Post to keep the services and at the same time look at alternative ways to sustain the local store.

At the first committee meeting, Jane offered to use her professional marketing skills and experience from her previous Wellington work to draw up a campaign plan. She went and talked with the local store, school, church, kohanga reo and kaumatua about their networks and potential contribution to the campaign. When she presented the plan at the next meeting, there was a mixture of gratitude and scepticism around the table. “All these fancy words look great on paper but I’m not sure it will change anything. Wellington has never listened to us, so we’ll have to find our own solutions.” Jane was surprised at how powerless many felt and hoped her skills could help.

Over the coming weeks, it became very clear to Jane that her initial plan to assign different tasks and roles to different people on the committee was not going to work like it did in her previous Wellington management role. Things happened in a much more organic way in this town, and it was still early days for her in getting to know people, let alone in getting people to trust her. So she held her plan lightly, and shifted to the “one conversation at a time” strategy instead. She spent time getting to know the key local community people who would make or break this campaign, and gently dropped into the conversation possible actions that they or she might take. They shared tea, scones, beer, laughs, stories and outrageous possibilities, till they landed on agreed actions. There were heaps of skills and resourceful people here. They were just different from the ones in Jane’s previous life.

The committee met weekly to keep momentum going. Jane’s plan was still there in the background, but mostly action plans emerged from weekly committee discussions, depending on how NZ Post were responding and who else was coming on board. They managed to get a temporary delay from NZ Post for 6 months and refocused their energy on ways to keep the local store viable. Their vision was a new café for locals and visitors at the local store and they expected it would thrive when a new cycle trail opened a year later. Jane reflected on how much she was enjoying about listening, learning and being adaptable in this new phase of her life.

How to bring the community together to plan


Learn how to plan a successful Community Hui – use our event planning guide to attract your people, develop your event’s purpose and integrate the right processes for success.

How to organise and facilitate a successful community visioning hui.


Working with Tāngata Whenua

Woman wearing korowai (traditional cloak).

Relationship-building between tāngata whenua (people of the land) and tāngata tiriti (all others who have come here) organisations, groups and communities is a core component of Community-Led Development in Aotearoa. The following resource provides three different tools to support communities in developing relationships with tāngata whenua.

Inspiring Communities is committed to a Treaty-honouring Aotearoa in which people actively participate in shaping their communities. Here’s some information on Our Engagement with Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Stakeholder mapping

A stakeholder is any person or organisation that has an interest or influence in what you want to achieve. Once you have identified your purpose or outcome, it’s useful to think about who might be useful to engage with to support to support your community-led change efforts.

So let’s get started

There are many different ways that stakeholder mapping can be approached. They generally involve a mix of:

Read more…

Identifying: listing the relevant groups, organisations and people who will have an interest in or connection to the outcome or purpose you are interested in.

Analysing: going deeper to understand stakeholder perspectives and interests.  This can be done informally (e.g. through brainstorming and conversations) or more formally (e.g. through surveying, structured meetings/engagement processes). 

Mapping: visualising how particular stakeholder relationships might link and connect with the objectives and outcomes you are seeking. For example, the Forest Stakeholder Map below (from an earlier version of the UK Forestry Commission website) visually links different layers of interests and connection to the forest.

Forest Stakeholder Map


Prioritising: ranking stakeholder connections and interests to help work out who to engage or involve and how or how deeply.

It’s useful to intentionally think about who to work with in terms of their:

  • Stake in the issue/vision/project
  • Possible influence on the outcome
  • Willingness to be involved
  • Potential contribution (funds, information, land, mana, networks)

Levels of stakeholder participation and collaboration

Stakeholders can collaborate with you at varying levels. Some will want to be more involved than others.

Read more…

An example of a stakeholder mapping wheel.

A stakeholder mapping wheel

The Tamarack Community Engagement Wheel can also be adapted for stakeholder scanning and prioritising in terms of the who factors above.

The Working Together Continuum explains more about the different levels of collaboration between you and your stakeholders or partners.

The Different Levels of Collaboration

Core to Success: This initiative won’t happen without them. Their active participation in solution-making and decision-taking is critical. (Partnership/integration/strong collaboration)

Involved: They have a direct stake in the outcome and should be linked to and contributing to what’s happening.  (Collaboration)

Supportive:  They care about the vision and need to stay lightly engaged, receive updates, etc.  They can help if called on.  (Co-operation)

Peripheral: They receive information and know what’s happening, but don’t need to be directly involved.  (Communication)

A template follows to help you brainstorm and prioritise key stakeholders to engage and involve follows next:

A final check

  • Are these stakeholders reflected in your stakeholder scan? How?
  • Who else might have a stake in the outcomes but not have influence, money or an initial desire to be involved?
  • What else can you do to engage with and involve them?

Being an Effective Supporter of CLD

Engaging in and with communities requires mindfulness and good preparation around the why, who and especially the how. Those who engage as ‘experts’ are more likely to be met with suspicion and mistrust. Someone who engages from a place of learning, inquiry, curiosity, facilitation, humility, and relationship is more likely to be welcomed. You might have some expertise, but locals are “context experts” who know stuff about this place that you don’t. 

The resource below contains some useful reminders about what matters when we show up in communities as an outsider wanting to help, or having been asked to help. Even if we are an insider, these rules will still usually apply.

The Working Together Continuum

Children playing tug of war.

Understanding different kinds of working relationships is crucial to getting the most out of key stakeholders within your community. From local government, to businesses, to residents, to funders and everyone in between, having an understanding of the types of working relationships you’re likely to encounter – and which ones you will strive to have – will only strengthen your ability to connect with people community-wide.

This explanatory document will introduce you to the types of relationships and their characteristics and allow you to constructively plan ways of communicating and bringing people together to work within these relationship types. It might also encourage you to move a working relationship along the continuum, because it’s important to note that partnering isn’t necessarily the ultimate goal for every relationship.

Also, this worksheet may be useful to print and use in mapping out current and intended relationships.

Questioning our Leadership Assumptions

What words or images immediately come to mind when you think about leadership?

Child wearing a t-shirt that says "Future Leader" on it.

Strong? Decisive? Heroic? Visionary? Charismatic? Great communicators? Courageous?

We can quickly end up with a super-human job description for leaders that then feels out of reach for most of us. Yet for each of the words or images you identified about leadership and leaders’ qualities, skills, behaviours and attitudes, the opposite is also likely to be true.

For example, it’s great when those in leadership roles can:

  • have a strong sense of self and show and cope with being vulnerable too
  • offer decisive answers and also know when it is better to ask powerful questions to help a group find answers together
  • inspire people with their own vision and be a good facilitator, helping everyone’s voice to be heard in shaping a shared vision
  • lead out front at times and be quiet nurturers of others, leading by walking alongside or behind, at other times
  • be great communicators and great listeners
  • be courageous in their actions and humble in their reflections
  • help put plans, structures and systems in place and be comfortable working in situations that call for more organic, messy, one-step-at-a-time approaches.

So we can relax about what we expect leaders to know or be or do! From a CLD perspective, our aim is to grow a “leaderful” community, where people keep moving between different leadership roles depending on the situation. There are many different ways of ‘doing’ leadership.  And the best leaders keep adapting their responses, based on what they are noticing is happening in the community around them.

Some final questions

  • What draws you to contributing as an active citizen in your community?
  • What, if anything, holds you back?
  • If you could lead and contribute in whatever way felt right for you, what would you like to do?
  • What’s one step, however small, that you could take this month to help make that possible?

From service delivery to being of service in place

Article prepared by Inspiring Communities’ Barbara MacLennan, February 2016.

Primary health, social and education services are the focus for Tipu Ora in Rotorua. With its home base in the beautiful village of Ohinemutu, the reach and credibility of the organisation has grown each year since being founded around three decades ago.

 Kia Puawai Whānau Planting Day
Kia Puawai Whānau Planting Day

In a conversation with Tipu Ora Executive Manager Raewyn Bourne and Clinical Co-ordinator Evalyn Berryman, Inspiring Communites’s Barbara MacLennan learned about Kia Puawai, a new place based approach which the Trust began two years ago.

“While our funding streams all still come in silos, we’ve been working hard to integrate all the services and supports we can offer in ways that serve our community much more effectively” said Raewyn.

When statistical analysis was used to identify the best ‘fit’ for targetting new funding contracts to support populations with high birth rates and vulnerable children, Rotorua’s Western suburbs showed up as an area for attention. “We decided that instead of expecting people to come to us, or us to go to families one by one, we should actually locate ourselves in that community, and see what we could learn from working in that way.”

Three months of conversations with local community leaders created goodwill and the opportunity to locate in a building adjacent to the community health centre and other community services. Evalyn explains it was important to create an environment where whanau feel comfortable and safe, this is their home away from home.  “Māori values guide this, our whare (house) kuia (nanny) role is to manaaki and awhi clients and their significant others.  We build trust with whanau by listening, being consistent and transparent.”  This approach appears to be working as the majority of self-referrals to the service are recommendations from friends and or whānau who have shared their own experiences accessing this service.

Raewyn describes the preparation of the new facility for opening as taking “a country mile of goodwill” from local organisations and people. She acknowledges it wasn’t all rosy at the start. A few organisations and services who are funded to work with the same populations were a bit resistant, and it took a while for both they and Kia Puawai to figure out how to ‘fit’ together well with community interests at heart. “Relationships are much better now” says Raewyn. “It’s about focussing on goals and aspirations we share, and creating systems and ways of working together that really help us keep connected, specially with the people and community we serve. In retrospect we would do some things differently in that phase of getting started, but we just had to give it a go and be brave!”

 Kia Puawai Whānau Planting Day

Raewyn and Evalyn talk about the enormous benefits of being located in a neighbourhood, and having a whole wealth of expertise across Tipu Ora which could be called on as needed. “Only a few of our Team are based in Western Heights every day, but our whole organisation is effectively available, and is learning from the experience.”

A lot of the work focuses on young and first time parents and includes mothercraft and homecraft programmes.  “It’s great to see a young māmā whose own confidence has grown come back to the whare to help teach pregnant and other first time mums how to bathe their pēpe or share her experience of breastfeeding,” Evalyn shares. “Our Kia Puawai whare makes that possible”.

Being community-based, and well networked with other agencies serving the Western Suburbs enhances the possibility of being able to find and connect with vulnerable people and families. “It’s hard work. There’s no doubt that some just don’t want to be connected because of their own past experiences, or who they are associating with. But our chances are so much higher when we are actually there, and part of the local community fabric too. These babies and children are all of our responsibility, and the sooner we can awhi them and their whānau, and wrap the right guidance, information and support around them, the better.”

More information on Tipu Ora.