Community Engagement Report: Analyzing Social Innovation Strategies

This report examines community engagement and social innovation, focusing on the organization Action on Poverty. It explores the theory of community engagement, highlighting the importance of collective efforts in supporting vulnerable populations. The report analyzes Action on Poverty's miss...Read More

Running head: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Community Engagement: Building Strengths and Capabilities
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Social innovation and community engagement theory....................................................................4
Social Innovation.............................................................................................................................5
SWOT and PESTLE........................................................................................................................6
Possible funding and ethical implications....................................................................................9
Challenges for implementation........................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10

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Executive Summary
Community engagement refers to the involvement of the people of the community for helping
the challenged or the helpless sections of the society. In other words, it is the means by which
people try to help the vulnerable sections of the society who are poor and needy (Chapman et al.
2016). Some of the vulnerable sections of the society are the disabled people, the poverty-
stricken people, the old and aging people and many other such parts of the society (Cornia 2018).
However, this effort can be successful only if there is the proper involvement of the larger and
greater sections of people. The number of people extends their helping hands; the better results
will be obtained. The purpose of this report was to deal with concepts of community engagement
and assess the role of the social innovation in the same. It mainly dealt with one of the comm.
Unity organizations of Australia that are known as the Poverty on Action. As the very name
suggests, it aims at eradicating the poverty and support the poverty-stricken people to become
self-sufficient. This report also talks about the social innovation theory that can be applied to
making this organization a great success at the local and the global level (Saunders 2018).

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Social innovation and community engagement theory
Community engagement theory is a theory that talks about the way the residents or the
people of a certain organization takes part in the welfare of any vulnerable part of the society. In
other words, it is an initiative taken by the people of the community to extend their helping hands
for taking care of some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged sections of the society. There
is actually no clear definition of this theory but it can be termed as an endeavor that is taken up
by the people of the society to make sure that they are being able to help out the ones that are in
danger. Some of the examples of the disadvantaged or he challenged sections of the society are
the poverty-stricken people, the refugees, the victims of some of the other natural disasters and
many other such sections of the community (Voorberg, Bekkers and Tummers 2015). In other
words, there have to be joint efforts given by all the people of the society so that the work
becomes much more exciting. There has to be a joint effort by all the members so that there can
be a lot more innovative ideas (Sam 2016). If more people are joining in then it is an obvious fact
that all the people will be able to give many new and innovative ideas.
One of the major aspects of this community engagement is the connection. However, in
this context, it is important to note that the people who are taking part in this collaborative effort
for the community engagement may or may not be connected to each other by the geographic
location or by any other kinds of interests. They are not really concerned about all this issue; the
only thing that these volunteers are concerned about is promoting the overall welfare of the
organization. The shift or the transmission of the word from the community to engagement is
also a shift in the concept (Abbott et al., 2018). This is actually taking the concern of people
from the individual level to the collective level. In other words, this initiative can succeed with

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the involvement of a large number of people. As the very name suggests, the community
engagement can be successful only when a large number of people from society. The community
is agreeing upon terms to help out the poor and the challenged parts of the society.
One such community engagement group is the Action on Poverty (Action on Poverty.
2018). As the very name suggests, it is basically an effort of the Not For Profit organization to
take care of the poor and the need sections of the society. It is basically an Australian non-
governmental organization that helps in providing security to the poor and the needy. The social
innovation has to be such that it brings the poor people from the margins of the society to the
center (Han et al. 2014). The innovation must make people self-sufficiency. This is because they
cannot depend on any organizational aid for their entire life. So they must be given the chances
of getting a proper education and finding good income opportunities (Vanwesenbeeck et al.
2016).
Social Innovation
Action on Poverty is one of the most important community groups that help in the poor
and the needy sections of the society. One of the most important principles that they are working
upon is the inequality present within the society. They are mainly working for the purpose of
giving a better social and economic standard of living for the people. They basically try to make
the poor and needy people of the society become self-sufficient. They are trying to make those
societies find better employment opportunities and educational opportunities.
I am really very thankful to my University that they gave me this opportunity of
becoming a part of this community welfare organization. My main task was to suggest some
innovative ideas that would help me in promoting the general welfare of the company. I realized

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that many people who belong under the BPL category are living in the remote and unhealthy
places. They do not have any idea about the basic health and hygiene. They also do not get any
education. As a result if this they resort to the ideas like child labour in order to run their family.
This makes them produce more children and the stress over the family increases. So, I decided to
educate those people by conducting free classes. I gathered funds from our locality and went to
those remote areas. I also took some of my teachers and classmates to help me in this aid. I set up
the open air classes for those poor people. I taught them the effects of over population. I also
taught them that this degrades their standard of also taught them that child labour is not a
solution. This is illegal. Instead they must educate themselves in some activities like making
handicrafts, farming and other such things. This would help them to get a good flow of money
and earn a living for them. I contacted the local counsellors of those places and arranged for
living a bath to all the children. I was really supported by my entire team and together we
arranged for some monetary donations along with free medical and food packages for those
people.
They have to provide the support like food security, economic facility, disability support,
and other such facilities so that the poverty-stricken people can stay by getting the minimum
acceptable standard of living (Butcher et al. 2018). None of the other social support can help the
poor people properly if they are starving. So, they have to make sure that they are providing
proper food to all the poor people particularly the children and the women. It has been seen that
there is usually a large number of children who are actually malnourished. As a result of this
providing proper food security is one of the most important issues.
The social innovation that must be taken is to engage the workers in some agro-based
employment activities that will help them to work (Joshi, Kaur and Jain 2016). One good social

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initiative in the remote areas is to educate the poor and the needy people through social
campaigns. The other important social innovation can be helping the households to grow and
become economically self-sufficient.
SWOT and PESTLE
STRENGTHS
 One of the important strength is the
mission and vision of the organization
that motivates them to work against the
prevailing inequalities among people.
 Experiences that they gain through their
work over all these years.
 Good and active partnerships that will
help them to carry on their work
properly.
WEAKNESS
 One of the major problems that might
come in their way is the availability of
enough amounts of fund and resources.
There can also be some quarrels or
issues with the partners. All together
this might create some issues that
hamper the overall operation of the
organization.
 There can also be a gap in the
communication among the employees
who are working for the organization.
Apart from this, there can also be a lack
of enough amount of training.
 Lack of proper management can also be
one of the major problems in the sound
working of the organization.

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OPPORTUNITIES
 They must be active enough to gather
the support from the support groups
and from many other sponsors. This
will help them to gather the good
amount of fund for the sound working
of their activities.
 Try to gain good support from the
media for advertising about their
organization and the kind of work that
they do. This will help them to extend
their helping hands to all the people
around.
THREAT
 Lack of enough amount of funding
might result in the poor performance in
some of the areas of the organization.
Apart from this, the lack of enough
amount of motivation is also one of the
major problems.
Political- The political forces like taxations or others might result in the lack of the inflow of a
sufficient amount of funds. If the tax policies become much higher then it might be a major
problem in getting the sufficient amount of resources for the proper functioning of the
organization.

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Economic- The rise in the cost of doing business might create a problem for the organization as
it might have to bear a huge amount of expense in paying the utility bills, household bills and
others. This might make them tighten their budget in some other areas.
Social- The social, factors like change in the standard of living, the social mobility, and other
such factors. For instance, they can anticipate that there will be a number of consumers in the
upcoming years. In such cases, they have to arrange for more amounts of resources.
Technological- They must be using the technological methods like integrated software system
and others for getting a more accurate data. This will help them to reach out to the targeted
groups properly ( Kandachar and Halme 2017).
Legal- They has to abide by the proper legal framework while working. They have to abide by
the laws like product safety, employment laws, educational acts, environmental acts.
Environmental- They have to take care that they are not harming the environment while
disposing of the waste from the slums or other such areas. They have to use proper eco-friendly
methods.
Possible funding and ethical implications
As far as the funding is concerned they have to be self-sufficient. In other words, they
must keep their funds or capital ready. They must not depend solely on any external source of
funding like the partnerships or the sponsors.
The question remains that whether all the employees are skilled enough to render the support to
all the vulnerable people of this group. There can be issues of racism or cultural differences.

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Challenges for implementation
The social innovation strategy suggested is developing a long-term anti-poverty solution
by making the people self-sufficient. In order to impellent this strategy pr this social innovation
theory they have to work very hard. They have to work for the educational and the voting rights
of these people. The poverty-stricken people are often illiterate and do not realize the importance
of education. So, they have to be made alert and they need to be informed about the importance
of this matter. However the problem does not end here, there can be many people among this
section who belong to the Aboriginals or the tribal sections of the society. So, this will surely
have a problem in getting the voting or the education rights sanctioned for these people.
Apart from this, there can be a problem if the number of poverty-stricken people
increases. There can be the problem in giving proper housing, food, educational and income
opportunities to all these people. Some people might not understand the need for this education.
They might think that satisfying their primary and basic need for the clothing and food and
shelter are the prime objectives. So they have to be properly educated by running the educational
campaigns. Here can be some funding issues that have to be solved by gathering a good amount
of funds from the sponsors or from the partners.
Too much media intervention can also bring the problem of negative publicity. This will
be bad as it can create a bad reputation for this organization (Ifijeh et al. 2015). As a result of
this, the partnerships with the important partners might break. This will have a direct effect on
the capital fund of the organization. They will not be able to contact any educational boards for
conducting the educational campaigns for these poor people. Media can be both useful and very
harmful for the growth of the organization.

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Conclusion
So, it can be concluded that Action on Poverty is already doing a good work by helping
the poor and the needy sections of the society. However, they might prepare themselves for the
unforeseen expenses. They must have their own capital resource a good fund that can be used for
their business purposes. They cannot depend on the partners or on the sponsors for carrying out
their business. They have to careful dealing with the media so that they do not become the
victims of any false rumors. They have to develop training and educational facilities for the
poverty-stricken people so that they can actually find some good employment opportunity.
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