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ADDENDUM
HOW THE CONFERENCE
CAME TO BE
The idea for a conference on the New
Communities Program originated from
the lead agencies themselves. After
two successful assemblies in April
2005 and November 2006, lead agency
staff wanted not only to highlight the
program’s accomplishments, but to lift
up the NCP “tools of the trade” both to
their own community partners and to
the many others who have expressed
interest in the approach.
So LISC/Chicago set to work with the
lead agencies to develop the content
and structure of the two-day
conference. This included debating and
deciding what the key tools are, how to
structure the workshops and what
issues would attract discussion among
community development practitioners.
In addition to two “all lead agency”
meetings to flesh out the core ideas,
monthly meetings were held over a sixmonth
period to discuss and fine-tune
conference details and logistics.
A unique feature of the conference was
the emphasis on local leadership. No
outside experts were brought in. Every
workshop, roundtable and tour was led
by local community leaders and staff.
Much time and energy went into
developing the eight toolkit workshops
that formed the heart of the conference.
Lead agencies discussed who among
their peers would be good presenters,
LISC reached out to confirm which
groups would lead each workshop and
identified others to serve as facilitators,
and LISC worked with Valerie Denney
Communications to develop a
framework and process to help develop
each workshop into a quality
presentation.
Workshop panelists were encouraged
to include a creative or interactive
exercise as part of each session along
with plenty of time for Q & A. They were
discouraged from using PowerPoint
presentations and being “talking
heads.”
To prepare, each workshop team held
conference calls, face-to-face meetings
and a “dry run” in front of another
group of presenters, to get feedback on
what worked and what didn’t. After the
grueling series of dry runs, many panels
further refined their presentations until
they were ready to shine at the
conference. The three-month process
paid off with workshops that were wellattended
and even fun. One workshop
included a short violin demonstration,
another started with one-on-one
discussions, and a third included a ballpassing
exercise and live blogging.
A central benefit of the conference
was the professional growth of the
community leaders as they presented
their work to a national audience. This
was intentional, and by all accounts,
valuable to those on both sides of the
information exchange.
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