Case Stories
Mars Site
Stakeholder Alignment + Community Engagement for 20-acre site on Chicago’s West Side
We partnered with LISC Chicago to create and implement a process to engage multiple stakeholders, including community and citywide organizations, City departments, and a national corporation, in designing and implementing a community engagement process to help determine what residents would like to see happen to the Mars Wrigley 20-acre site on Chicago’s West Side.
The design sought to create alignment with the stakeholders first to identify shared values, communication plans, and goals of the planning process and then have them co-create the engagement plan. We designed and facilitated a co-design team for 6+ months composed of representatives from three local community organizations (Galewood Neighbors, Austin Coming Together, and Northwest Center), Mars Wrigley, LISC staff, and relevant City staff, particularly staff from the Department of Planning and Development. That team decided to host five community engagement meetings, including both virtual and face-to-face sessions. They worked together to get residents engaged, educated about the building and opportunity, and creatively thinking about potential and desired future uses.
See the final community engagement report and learn about the meetings here.
Press about the Project
Concept image. Credit: Chicago Public Art Group
Earth Art Chicago
Citywide Collaborative Arts and Environment Initiative
We partnered with Illinois Science Energy Innovation Foundation (ISEIF), the Kindling Group, ThinkINC., and Friends of the Parks to facilitate a series of community engagement sessions to co-create a granting process for a year-long program that brought together arts and the environment. Through a series of three meetings, Chicago residents who are passionate about the arts or the environment came together to create the values the granting process should hold, to determine what types of artists and projects should be funded and how community should be centered, and to offer creative thinking on the overall shaping of the program. Learn more about the project and see the results here.
Concept image. Credit: Chicago Public Art Group
Advocates for Urban Agriculture
Strategic Planning, Anti-Racism Training, and Organization Restructure Support
In their words:
What: We were looking for a facilitator to lead a virtual strategic planning process for our organization that was rooted in racial equity. After completing the strategic planning process, Seva facilitated a series of sessions with our staff that enabled us to develop a shared anti-racism analysis and make organizational shifts based on that analysis. Seva worked with our board and staff to co-create the strategic planning and anti-racism sessions and then worked with us to occasionally adapt sessions based on how things were progressing. Seva helped cultivate an environment that allowed our team to be honest, open, and supportive.
Impact: We produced a 3-year strategic plan, with clear 1-year benchmarks and team members associated with working toward those benchmarks. We also developed a series of recommendations related to our operations, policies, and programs based on our shared anti-racism analysis. I highly recommend Collaborative Connections to anyone who is interested in doing strategic planning or anti-racism work. Over the course of a 6-month period, our team engaged in a series of very difficult and emotionally exhausting conversations, all in a virtual setting. We could not have accomplished that work without Seva’'s incredible facilitation skills and constant support and encouragement.
End Abuse
Long-Range Planning (LRP) for Addressing Sexual and Domestic Violence in Wisconsin
We partnered with End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin to support them as they convened statewide and local domestic violence and sexual assault member advocacy programs and advocates to co-create a long-range plan (LRP) for Wisconsin. The LRP is meant to offer an opportunity for programs to reflect on the current state of the movement and lay out a clear vision for the future.
We worked with a co-design team with End Abuse staff and directors from statewide and local advocacy programs to create an engagement plan that would allow advocates and those with lived experience to shape the plan. There was a scaffolded design of three engagement sessions to help reflect on the current state of affairs, lay out visions and actions for the future, and think through the implications of certain actions. The co-design team met in between each engagement session to continue to refine the design. See information from the input session and final plan here.
After participating in the LRP engagement series and hearing that funding restrictions continued to come up as a major challenge, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families asked us to support their work and engage providers in co-creating and giving shape to new state funding procedures and priorities.
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