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Whether we are struggling to generate fresh ideas or staring at problems with no solutions in sight, the spark of creative genius often seems out of reach. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review's Nonprofit Management Institute, Stanford Professor Tina Seelig discusses how we can unlock our creative genius through a set of tools and conditions we each have in our control-our "innovation engine." Based on real-world examples and a dozen years of experience teaching courses on creativity and entrepreneurship in the Stanford School of Engineering, Seelig challenges traditional assumptions about creativity to show us how we can seek out the right resources and environment to fuel our innovation engines. She contends that just as the scientific method demystifies the process of discovery, there is a formal process for unlocking the pathway to innovation.

The Local Community Services Association (LCSA) is the peak body for Neighbourhood Centres in NSW. Formed in 1974 LCSA supports its members' focus on social inclusion and all facets of community development through resources, networking and advocacy.

What is Pathways through Participation? Pathways through Participation is a two-and-a-half year (April 2009 - Nov 2011) qualitative research project that aimed to improve our understanding of how and why people participate, how their involvement changes over time, and what pathways, if any, exist between different activities.

CommunityMatters prepares communities to re-create themselves. Many people are already speaking up, reaching out and acting on their ideas, and those efforts need support. We offer the tools, resources and expertise that communities need, when they need them. Whether you're interested in building consensus for a school budget, using values to drive local decisions, or identifying technology to facilitate conversation, we stand ready to help.

Positive Deviance is based on the observation that in every community there are certain individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers, while having access to the same resources and facing similar or worse challenges. The Positive Deviance approach is an asset-based, problem-solving, and community-driven approach that enables the community to discover these successful behaviors and strategies and develop a plan of action to promote their adoption by all concerned.

The National League of Cities (NLC) is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. Working in partnership with the 49 state municipal leagues, NLC serves as a resource to and an advocate for the more than 19,000 cities, villages and towns it represents.

The National Equity Atlas is a living resource, and our team is working to add new data and functionality to this site and produce new equity analyses that inform action. We will let you know when we've added new data and tools to the site.

What is Public Comment? Public commenting is a process that allows individuals, organizations, agencies, and businesses to provide input on proposed environmental decisions. (From the Environmental Law Institute Ocean Program) Public comments are important for a variety of reasons. When it comes to environmental decisions, a good aim is to get as many people to submit comments as possible. Often the "other side" (ie: big industries) will comment asking for rules to be more lax -- the specific ask totally depends on what the issue is. The point of getting a lot of people involved and submitting comments is to balance out the "other side" requests -- if more people ask an agency for better protections, then it gives them the support they need to make decisions that will better protect environmental resources.

The Sunlight Foundation is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that uses the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency, and provides new tools and resources for media and citizens, alike. We are committed to improving access to government information by making it available online, indeed redefining "public" information as meaning "online," and by creating new tools and websites to enable individuals and communities to better access that information and put it to use.

In 2010 we pubished A Private Sector Policy for the Arts, which was our compelling framework of action to reboot and rewire the mixed arts funding economy being revised following extensive consultation. Using business to help realise your arts projects For the arts we offer learning and development opportunities, tailored fundraising advice and resources for organisations seeking partnerships with business Enriching the arts to help bring your business to life For business we connect brands and agencies with arts sponsorship to help bring your business to life.

If you work in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution or community problem solving, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation is here to help you stay on top of news, resources and goings-on in the field, and to connect you with other movers-and-shakers who share your interests.

Good Jobs First is the nation's leading resource center for grassroots groups and public officials seeking to make economic development incentives (we prefer to call them subsidies) more accountable and effective. We also promote smart growth and green jobs policies that benefit working families. We are based in Washington, DC and have an affiliate in New York.

Existing patterns of urban and suburban development seriously impair our quality of life. The symptoms are: more congestion and air pollution resulting from our increased dependence on automobiles, the loss of precious open space, the need for costly improvements to roads and public services, the inequitable distribution of economic resources, and the loss of a sense of community. By drawing upon the best from the past and the present, we can plan communities that will more successfully serve the needs of those who live and work within them. Such planning should adhere to certain fundamental principles.

What interests me is how the lessons found in the article could be applied to real world community governance in relation to the public sector. Such communities are already in existence so cannot be created outside of the box to start with, however many of the other observations can be applied especially with the use of the Internet and application of direct democratic dialogue. It should be possible to create some new disruptive innovations which such an approach and resources to create some new community paradigms.

We all know that there are a lot of us that are out there doing good in our world. Unfortunately, those doing the good work don't always have the resources to take advantage of technologies that can make the good that they do operate more efficiently, more easily, and more coordinated. That's where we come in. We want you to take the good that you already do, and provide you with the solutions to accomplish it the way you want-great. Hence the name of our company. Your good works, done great.

OpenGovernment is a free and open-source public resource website for government transparency and civic engagement at the state and local levels. The site is a non-partisan joint project of two 501(c)3 non-profit organizations, the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation. OpenGovernment is independent from any government entity, candidate for office, or political party. The information contained on OpenGovernment pages, wherever applicable, is cited to a primary source-- while we aggregate many different data sources, we do not edit or manipulate government data in any way before presenting it here.

We believe that governments can make better use of scarce technology dollars by working together to solve common problems. We're helping them share their solutions, knowledge, and best practices. Civic technology experts have recognized the benefits of sharing technology among governments and institutions. However, instances of successful collaboration and sharing are still few and far between, in part because there is no easy, structured way to share knowledge about this software, let alone the software itself. There is no one place to go to look for civic software that cities need, and no roadmap to share what they have. Enter the Civic Commons. As infrastructure for the open government movement, Civic Commons is a community-edited resource to find out what's working, where. Ok, so what is it, really? Civic Commons is an information product, made up of the Marketplace, Engagement Commons, and the Wiki:

Inaction in Rio would be disastrous, but a single international agreement would be a grave mistake. We cannot rely on singular global policies to solve the problem of managing our common resources: the oceans, atmosphere, forests, waterways, and rich diversity of life that combine to create the right conditions for life, including seven billion humans, to thrive.

Civic technology experts have recognized the benefits of sharing technology among governments and institutions. However, instances of successful collaboration and sharing are still few and far between, in part because there is no easy, structured way to share knowledge about this software, let alone the software itself. There is no one place to go to look for civic software that cities need, and no roadmap to share what they have. Enter the Code for America Commons. As infrastructure for the open government movement, the CfA Commons is a community-edited resource to find out what's working, where.

Post Carbon Institute provides individuals, communities, businesses, and governments with the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated economic, energy, environmental, and equity crises that define the 21st century. We envision a world of resilient communities and re-localized economies that thrive within ecological bounds.