Smart Community Management Manual
About
This manual is presented as a practical guide to implementing the “Smart Community Management Framework” (SCMF) into your community.
Who can use it?
The development of the manual has been a joint undertaking by the Community Research Alliance,” click here. The SCMF is open source, meaning any community can use part or all of the framework as they see fit. The eTownz Community Management Dashboard is a digital platform developed to support the SCMF, but is not required to implement the framework. As part of this report, the community research alliance provides a series of resources which help to manage the implementation of the framework in your community.
Who can get involved?
All individuals and organisations in the community can come together to participate in the “Smart Local Team”. There are four categories of stakeholders:
- Local Residents
- Local Businesses
- Local Clubs/Groups
- Local Public Service Providers
Why Do Locals Get Involved?
The framework encourages local involvement. The more local people and organisations that get involved, the greater potential the framework has at bringing about positive change in the community.
Why local people get involved:
- Better place to live: Make the community a better place to live & work for all
- Fun: To promote the enjoyment and pleasure of being involved in things that interest you in your local community
- Rewarding: To ensure your participation is beneficial and rewarding
- Considerate: To work towards a community which is considerate to people & environment.
Why Organisations get involved:
- Co-operation & Support: To identify local organisations / people with similar goals and identify ways to cooperate and support each other
- Community Integration: Ensure your organisation is considered and given opportunity to play an active part in the local community
- Volunteer Support: To assist organisation recruiting new members and finding volunteers to help with projects
- Funding: Identify & better manage group funding opportunities.
Common Community Management Challenges
The framework is the culmination of many years of academic research and community engagement. The framework was developed to help address common community management challenges that include:
- Poor standard of local development plans
- Long, non specific local plans
- Local plans which are not read by most in the community
- Lack of coordination between local groups & stakeholders of various types
- Lack linkages between med/long term planning & day-day community management
- Difficulty in matching local volunteers to local projects
Benefits of the framework
The framework is designed to address a number of the common challenges experienced by communities and allow community management to be more transparent, efficient and effective:
- It creates meaningful engagement with local communities and local development organisations to ensure that the best outcome for the community is achieved
- It promotes equality of opportunity and social inclusion by prioritising the needs of communities experiencing social or economic disadvantage, including rural isolation.
- It is a robust local collaboration structure which will encourage transparency and participation within communities