Vaughn and Lawrence chosen to present at 2020 Collective Impact Convening

Tri-County Cradle to Career Collaborative’s LaTisha Vaughn and Trident United Way’s Amanda Lawrence have been chosen to present at the 2020 Collective Impact Convening event May 6-8, 2020, in Minneapolis, MN. Their proposal, addressing “authentic engagement,” was chosen by the Collective Impact Forum from more than 120 submitted proposals.

Vaughn and Lawrence submitted and were chosen to present their session, entitled “Engaging vs. Engagement” which will explore the differences between planning for versus planning with a community that has its own lived experiences.

“For too long, organizations, although well intended, have planned for communities instead of planning with communities to solve problems,” said LaTisha Vaughn, TCCC’s Director of Networks.  “Communities of need do not lack insight into their barriers, challenges or solutions, they lack critical connections and resources to be able to effectively create and implement solutions.”

Planning with communities in need ensures that critical insight and first-hand, lived experiences lead to the right issues or barriers being tackled. It ensures that the community is empowered to find solutions that work for them rather than an organization supporting a pre-determined and uninformed solution for a community.

Vaughn and Lawrence’s presentation will also explore tools and techniques used to help ensure authentic community engagement, creation of initiatives using a lens of equity and knowledge of what best practices work well and what roadblocks to avoid to maintain momentum for community engagement and improvement.

LaTisha Vaughn and Amanda Lawrence