Non-Profit Organizations - Addressing Community Challenges is a Grass-Roots Effort

Bottom-up, grass-roots consensus community processes are the centerpiece of 21st century community building and empowerment. Most successful projects and processes in our Memphis metro area in recent years have addressed the community challenges as inclusive, grass-roots approaches. Most failed projects have ignored these principals.

You only have to look at the board of directors of four organizations in our community to gain some understanding. Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, Memphis Bioworks Foundation, the Crime Commission, and the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce are four examples of boards and leadership comprised of a broad cross section of Memphians: black, white, young, old, male, and female. Furthermore, the leadership of those organizations understands and practices reaching deep into the stakeholder communities to gain opinion, feedback, and participation before decisions are made and projects initiated. The approach and priorities of each of these organizations along with many, many others represents the present reality and the future approach of our community. While many seemingly intransigent issues around economic disparity, poverty, and race remain as significant community challenges, there is a new spirit of success, cooperation, collaboration, and community building emerging and even maturing.

For example, Memphis Tomorrow’s membership is comprised of predominantly white male CEO’s of the largest companies and institutions in the region. Memphis Tomorrow executes its projects and initiatives focused on education, crime, and economic development around the successful principles of deep research, broad community fact-gathering and grass-roots engagement. While comprised of top-down leadership, the approach of Memphis Tomorrow at its core is grass-roots community consensus building and execution.