Recognizing Your Challenges and Strengths

In the last lesson, we looked at the patterns shared by communities that keep value at home. You scored your own place against seven of them, and you probably found that some are strong and others are missing.

This lesson brings everything you have gathered so far into one honest picture. Your Abundance Inventory shows what you have. Your Dependence Map shows where you are exposed. Your Pattern Check shows which conditions for change are already in place. Put together, they tell you what is realistic for your community right now, and what needs work first.

Every place is different

No two communities face the same mix of challenges. A remote Nation may have land, waste streams and a strong sense of identity, but face long distances, high transport costs and thin funding. A town near a city may have markets and skills nearby, but little land and high property costs. A rural district may have farmland and willing growers, but no local processing.

This is why copying another community’s project so often fails. The idea might be good. The conditions are different. Before you choose what to build, you need to know your own conditions well.

Challenges come in three kinds

It helps to sort your challenges into three groups, because each calls for a different response.

Constraints. These are facts you have to design around. Distance from markets, a small population, a short growing season, limited water, steep terrain or a ferry connection. You can’t remove a constraint, but you can choose an opportunity that suits it. A remote community might focus on replacing expensive imports rather than exporting products that cost a lot to ship.

Gaps. These are things that are missing but can be filled. A missing skill, a missing partner, a missing piece of equipment, a missing site or a missing source of finance. Gaps are often the most useful challenges to name, because each one points to a specific action.

Blockers. These are issues that will stop a project no matter how good it is. Unclear authority over land, a lack of community support, a leadership conflict, or rules that don’t allow the activity at all. Blockers must be faced first. A project that starts with an unresolved blocker usually stalls later, after money and goodwill have been spent.

Most communities find they have several constraints, a handful of gaps and, hopefully, no more than one or two blockers.

Strengths that are easy to miss

Communities often undersell themselves. When people list strengths, they tend to name natural resources and forget everything else. Look again for these.

• Relationships. Trust between a Nation and a municipality, a good working relationship with a local business, or families who have known each other for generations. Relationships make everything faster.
• A champion. One determined person who will keep a project moving can matter more than a large budget. Every case in this course had at least one.
• Past wins. A community that has delivered one project successfully has proven it can deliver another, and funders notice.
• Authority. Self-government, a land base, a bylaw-making council or a development corporation gives a community the ability to act.
• Story. A place with a clear identity and a compelling story attracts partners, visitors and investors.
• Waste. Anything you currently pay to get rid of is a potential input. It is also the strength people most often miss.

Readiness matters as much as resources

A community can be rich in assets and still not be ready to act. Readiness is about people, decisions and support. Seven questions help you judge it.

• Is there leadership support? Have the people who make decisions said, in some form, that they want this kind of work to happen?
• Is there a champion? Who will carry this day to day?
• Is there community support? Do the people affected know about the idea, and are they open to it?
• Is there authority? Can the community make the decisions the project needs, about land, permits and partners?
• Are there partners? Is there at least one organization outside your own that could help?
• Is there a route to finance? Is there a realistic source of money for the first stage, even a small one?
• Are the basic skills available? Can the first stage be run with the people and skills you have, or can they be found quickly?

You don’t need a yes to every question. But if most answers are no, the right first step is probably to build readiness, not to launch an enterprise.

Reading your place honestly

Two mistakes are common at this stage.

The first is optimism without evidence. It is easy to assume that support exists because a few enthusiastic people are in the room. Check. Talk to the people who would be affected, and listen for doubts as well as excitement.

The second is pessimism that hides strengths. Communities that have been let down by outside programs can be quick to assume nothing will work. Look at what has already worked, however small. A community garden, a successful event, a reliable local business. These are proof that the community can organise and deliver.

On the Sunshine Coast, the Town of Gibsons had a strong set of conditions for its food waste program: something worth protecting, staff who could explain the case in budget terms, the ability to act on its own, and a local partner to process the material. It still had constraints, including a small tax base and limited land. It chose a project that fitted its strengths and worked within its constraints.