SUGGESTIONS FOR NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS, BASED ON A SEVEN YEAR TRIAL IN A NEIGHBORHOOD OF 231 HOUSEHOLDS IN NORTHEAST ANN ARBOR (BROMLEY HOMEOWNERS’ ASSOCIATION). NOTES OF SANDRA L. ARLINGHAUS.
SUGGESTIONS BASED ON COMMON SENSE AND DIRECT EXPERIENCE
UNDERLYING CONCEPT--COMMUNITY UNITY:
Success as a community arises from bringing individuals together as an informed unit; it is the union of individual effort, that comes when people set aside their differences and work together, in a constructive and cooperative manner, that yields community unity. Any activities that foster such unity are of value. This concept is likely to apply to any community of any size; the manner of implementation of the concept may differ, however, depending on size of the community entity.
GENERAL SUGGESTIONS
- Register the neighborhood organization with the Planning Department in City Hall. The city maintains a list of all organizations and informs organization contact people about events in or near (within 300 feet) of their neighborhood. It is useful to have the contact person have a computer and to be the person who writes about the content that is sent out by the City. When the contact person changes, make certain the new person calls immediately and registers the change of address.
- Hold well-organized meetings, with a formal agenda. Keep them short and to the point; consider inviting guest speakers from the City (a Council person, a police officer, and so forth; many governmental, public, and private organizations have outreach facilities for providing speakers).
- Styles of topics
Reactive: often neighborhood organizations are active only when the neighborhood is upset--well organized neighborhood organizations can exert a great deal of clout in such matters, especially when they consult with other neighborhood organizations and spend time talking to each other prior to trips to City Hall.
Creative: often overlooked, this approach can do much to prevent the need for an organization to become reactive. Study the issues surrounding the neighborhood. Get to know the people outside the neighborhood that are involved, including representatives in City Hall and staff in City Hall. Adopt a viewpoint that all who live in Ann Arbor are naturally interested in the welfare of the city and are probably not likely to intentionally cause great difficulty within any single locale. Remember, City Hall is staffed by people, too. Indeed, good manners are appreciated by all...try a thank-you note when you are helped by a city staff person. The networks that are established by a neighborhood organization, when it is not functioning in crisis mode, are likely to be of great value on a continuing basis.
- Establish the neighborhood organization as a non-profit organization with a Board of Directors and officers (President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer, or some such categorization). Create By-Laws for the neighborhood organization--consider collecting existing By-Laws from similar neighborhoods.
- Allow volunteers (board members) to do what they are good at. Do not require them to each take a turn at something most dislike. Find a way around the disliked task, or find someone who likes it. An unhappy volunteer is likely to soon become an ex-volunteer.
- Reward volunteers--have a picnic; have them at a board member’s home who enjoys entertaining for coffee and dessert, or some such. Develop a spirit of unity on the board, itself. The spirit at the center will diffuse to the rest of the neighborhood.
- Reward anyone who helps the neighborhood in any way, great or small...consider a certificate of appreciation awarded by the neighborhood organization to the individual.
- Charge nominal dues to join the neighborhood organization--$5 or $10 a year can go a long way when many households join in.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVITIES TO FOSTER UNITY:
- Newsletter--a monthly newsletter, delivered to all residences (whether or not they pay dues) does much to promote unity--it keeps people in touch with established neighborhood organization, with networks outside the neighborhood, and of course informs neighbors of successes and problems associated with the neighborhood. It is just as important to share the positive as the negative (perhaps more so); hearing of the positive, on a regular basis, helps to build interest and pride in the community. When a problem arises, there is an interested body of individuals who already know where their strengths lie, ready to work together to solve the problem. Thus, frequent publication of a newsletter, rather than a large packet a few times a year, is important. Neighborhood resources can work together to produce the newsletter--children to deliver it (pay them), people with computer graphics expertise to produce it, and so forth. It is easier to produce a newsletter when a number of neighbors pitch in what they are good at. Annual dues can cover this cost.
- Neighborhood Directory--an annual directory, arranged alphabetically by last name, and by street address, is a useful tool. Deliver it to all households. The directory can be made to be self-sustaining, and not funded by annual dues, if local merchants (not from franchises...they often have some other firm do the advertising) are offered the opportunity to purchase a quarter, half, or full page (for, say, $25, $50, or $100). To make the offer attractive, the merchants should know that all homes in the neighborhood will receive the directory, that they may put a coupon on their ad (then produce the advertising single-sided or someone else’s ad might get cut), and that funds collected from advertising will be used to produce the directory and that extra funds will be used to develop a program of neighborhood grants.
- Neighborhood Grants--extra money can be used to improve the neighborhood. Advertise a grant program in the newsletter. Use the money to give a book to the local school library with a bookplate indicating that the gift is from the neighborhood association; use it to plant extra flowers somewhere; use it to take out newspaper ads for neighborhood-wide functions such as garage sales and the like. Grant moneys might also be used to give neighborhood-wide parties or to sponsor other social activities that foster unity. The possibilities are endless, and once the Neighborhood Organization makes it known to the neighborhood that such moneys are likely to become available, the calls from interested people are likely to start coming in.
- Extra care--involve young people in neighborhood activities, at as early an age as possible. Offer free advertising in the newsletter for young people who wish to mow lawns and the like. Learn where homes are with individuals who are infirm; if there is a power outage, call a neighbor to check on them. Indeed, if there is a power outage, call a number of widely spaced homes to see if each has power...then the community organization can call Edison and report a whole block of outages and improve Edison’s efficiency. Extra care can be varied in numerous ways in response to highly localized needs.
LINKAGES WITH OTHER NETWORKS THAT FOSTER UNITY
- Maintain an active Neighborhood Watch group; consider having an exposed (rather than a clandestine) network and publishing the names of the block captains and their phone numbers in the newsletter and the directory (with a map in the directory showing the locations of all homes in the neighborhood--with the idea that an informed neighborhood is a safer neighborhood). Work with Adele Akouri in the Police Department; with her help, designate a head in the neighborhood. The head should learn to know community police officers, as well as Adele. Try to maintain a set of homeowners who form a line-of-sight network to serve as block captains. Have the Homeowners’ Association work closely with the Neighborhood Watch Head in the neighborhood and with Adele.
- Other neighborhood organizations. Consider investing grant moneys in other neighborhood organizations--a local swimming pool or other common facility.
Maintain an active, useful archive of neighborhood materials. One way to do this is to put old newsletters on-line: on a Web Page or available by File Transfer Protocol (ftp). Other ways might involve local libraries. All too often, neighborhood archives become scattered and lost as volunteers move or become overwhelmed. It is a shame to lose track of what went before; studying archives can help new people not to re-invent the wheel and help them to channel their creativity in focused, useful activity. Bromley Homeowners’ Association archive: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sarhaus/bha