The Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis is running a workshop on how to carry out constructive community engagement that involves data. This workshop is designed in partnership with UMSL, Rise, and Urban Strategies. The training will begin at 2:30pm on Tuesday January 28th, at UMSL at Grand Center, 3651 Olive. Among other topics, it will cover:

• How to plan and prepare for a community engagement meeting,
• Engagement techniques and strategies to provide all meeting attendees different avenues to voice their thoughts,
• How to determine what information or data would be important to have for residents at meetings on different topics, and
• How to present and talk about data in an easily understandable way.

At 4:00pm an optional half hour session focused on how to engage and prepare residents to participate in the City of St. Louis’ Consolidated Planning Process will begin. This community engagement workshop is aimed at CBN and SLACO members along with government officials.

In the fall, the annual discussion unfolded about how federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars to the City of St. Louis would be spent.  Federal regulators insisted that the City change its method of deciding where the dollars would be spent.  In a nutshell, the change can be described as moving away from the tradition of Aldermen deciding how CDBG money would be spent within the ward, and toward  a City-wide competition.

The entire experience has led many interested parties in the City to want to increase participation at the grassroots level.  The Consolidated Plan should have considerable influence over how millions of dollars are spent over the next five years, so make sure your neighborhood is well represented.

To register for the January 28 sessions, click here. Registration deadline is January 21, 2014.