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Tutorial Overview

• TAKE HOME MESSAGES
• WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?
• 10 STEPS TO SUSTAINABILITY
• COALITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS
  • Benefits of Partnerships
• POLICY FOR SUSTAINABLE CHANGES
• SUMMARY
• QUICK CHECK
• REFERENCES

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TAKE HOME MESSAGES

After completing this tutorial, you will be familiar with:

• How to create a sustainability plan for your coalition
• Types of strategic partnerships
• Ways of participating in policy making

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WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?

Sustainability is a community’s ongoing capacity and resolve to work together to establish, advance and maintain effective strategies that continuously improve health and quality of life for all.

Sustainable means having enough resources to intervene, and maintaining those resources long enough to see community level outcomes.

To be successful long-term, your coalition will need to adapt to changes in the community and the economy.  It also needs to be able to monitor the results of its strategies and adjust them accordingly over time.

Change does not take place in a community overnight – your coalition should be in it for the long haul! 

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WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY? cont'd

The following diagram shows in green the core approaches to sustainability: 1) coalitions and partnerships and 2) policy for sustainable changes.  The items in blue are activities your coalition can engage in to compliment the core approaches: Communication Strategies, Social Marketing, Establishing a Community Home, and Building Coalition Member’s Skills.

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WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY? cont'd

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10 STEPS TO SUSTAINABILITY

To increase your chances for long term success, the coalition should develop a sustainability plan, using the following 10 steps as a guide.

• Step 1: Create a shared understanding of sustainability
  • It is important that everyone on your coalition understands sustainability.  To be successful in the long-term, be sure to have a clearly defined mission and vision that your coalition can “own”.
• Step 2: Create a plan to work through the process
  • Once your collation identifies what sustainability means, it’s time to create a sustainability plan.  Ask yourselves:
    • Who do I need to carry out the plan?
    • How long will it take?
• Step 3: Position coalition efforts to increase the odds of sustainability
  • Start by identifying what your coalition is currently doing to foster sustainability.
  • Think about current and future goals and factors such as infrastructure and financial resources

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10 STEPS TO SUSTAINABILITY cont'd

• Step 4: Look at the current picture and pending items
  • Make a list of your coalition’s efforts, then list the upcoming items and events that can impact the continuation of those efforts.
  • Potential criteria: available resources, level of community support, evidence of effectiveness, whether the need still exists.
• Step 5: Develop criteria to help determine which efforts to continue
  • When developing these criteria, consider your coalition’s mission, how it is structured and supported, and the long-term goal of your efforts.
• Step 6: Decide what to continue and prioritize
  • Your coalition cannot continue all activities indefinitely, so it will be important to prioritize some efforts while discontinuing others once they have achieved their goal or as other issues arise.
• Step 7: Create options for maintaining your priority efforts
  • Think creatively about leveraging funding sources for the efforts your coalition prioritized.  Remember, continuing an effort does not necessarily mean continuing in the same way.

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10 STEPS TO SUSTAINABILITY cont'd

• Step 8: Develop a sustainability plan
  • A sustainability plan describes a process for:
    • Obtaining buy-in from coalition members and key decision makers
    • Defining critical long- and short-term strategies
    • Acquiring resources necessary for implementing these strategies
• Step 9: Implement the sustainability plan
  • Start by creating an Action Plan (Tutorial 4) for each strategy.
• Step 10: Evaluate outcomes and revise as needed
  • Evaluation is the last step, but this should not be the first time you think about it.  Evaluations work best when they have been planned from the start and are an ongoing activity.

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COALITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS

A partnership can be defined as “a group of entities or individuals who intentionally come together for a common purpose.”

Partners agree on specific goals, develop a plan of action, and share responsibility for implementing the plan in order to achieve the partnership’s goals. Partnerships lie on a continuum that can range from simply networking and exchanging information to full collaborations, where the capacity of all partnering organizations is enhanced for mutual benefit.

The following table depicts four ways your coalition can partner with other individuals and organizations. These connections are important for leveraging existing resources while not duplicating efforts.

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COALITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS cont'd

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COALITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS cont'd

Benefits of Partnerships:

There are several benefits of partnerships:

• Provide access to resources not available through your organization
• Address large-scale issues that individual organizations cannot manage alone
• Provide access to hard to reach groups and communities
• Generate moral support and enthusiasm
• Build a greater foundation for change and sustainability

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POLICY FOR SUSTAINABLE CHANGES

Participating in policy decisions is often critical for achieving sustainable changes in systems and environments.

Policy is a law, regulation, procedure, administrative action, incentive, or voluntary practice of governments and other institutions, such as corporations, health care systems, and community-based organizations. Policy decisions are frequently reflected in resource allocations.

Policy decisions can occur at different levels, for example:

• Organizations
• Local Jurisdictions
• Tribal Governments
• State Governments
• Federal Government

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POLICY FOR SUSTAINABLE CHANGES cont'd

Policy change can support health promotion and behavior change, or make a program economically sustainable.

There are various ways to participate in policy making. They include:

• Spreading the word – public education
• Publishing your positions – reports, white papers, newsletters
• Staying in touch – informal contacts with decision makers
• Shaping opinion – media campaigns
• Generating support – grassroots organizing

It is important to understand the extent and limits of your role in doing policy work, as well as to understand where your partners and coalition members may be able to take the lead.

To learn more about policy, stay tuned for THE POLICY GUIDEBOOK, coming soon from DTTAC.

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SUMMARY

Creating a sustainability plan for your coalition will allow your coalition to be a force for good in the community for many years.  Change does not happen overnight, so it is important to plan for long-term action.  Forming partnerships with other organizations in the community can enhance your coalition’s reach and impact in the community.

And now, a final Quick Check…

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QUICK CHECK

Let’s check your understanding of the material we just covered. Read each question and select the best answer choice.

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REFERENCES

Adapted from:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adult and Community Health, Healthy Communities Program (2011).  A sustainability planning guide for communities.  Available at http://www.cdc.gov/healthycommunitiesprogram/pdf/sustainability_guide.pdf.  Accessed on August 22, 2011.
• Kaye, G. and Wolfe, T.  (1997). From the Ground Up:  A Workbook on Coalition Building & Community Development.  2nd ed. AHEC/Community Partners. 
• Ramsey Molina, R (2010).  Coalition Sustainability: Sustaining for the long haul.  Available at http://www.preventionworksinseattle.org/uploads/Sustaining4-the-Longhaul-CD-12-2010.pdf.  Accessed on September 6, 2011.

Well done!

You have completed Tutorial 6: Promoting and Sustaining the Coalition.

Congratulations – you have finished the online pre-work!  You should now have a good base knowledge of the topics that will be covered in Diabetes Today Workshop so you can get the most out of the in person training. 

Don’t forget to bring your DATA QUEST with you to the training.  This and other material from the tutorials will be referred to during the training sessions.

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