DUBUQUE, IOWA, 1998-2000
Project Description
In the fall of 1998 the City of Dubuque, Iowa’s Housing Services Department began a 1½ year long process to strengthen and improve contentious relationships with customers and to achieve a community-wide consensus on public policy. The process addressed a consolidated plan for Housing, Community and Economic Development for 2000-2005 that set priorities for expenditure of $20 million.
Finance and Support
The appreciative inquiry (AI) process was initiated by a public/voluntary sector collaboration between the City’s Housing Services Department and an Intercongregational Housing Project organized by six groups of nuns. It was funded through the Community Development Block Grant Program, Section 8 funds, and the Iowa Housing Corporation (a mix of federal and state funds). The City contracted with the management consulting firm, EnCompass LLC, to guide this process.
Stakeholders
A representative, citizen-based planning committee guided the work. It identified key stakeholders that included all the “business of housing” interests: tenants, elected officials, government, schools, service providers, and neighborhood associations. By collaborating with the Intercongregational Housing Project, this project brought forward an organized moral voice to address affordable housing issues for the disenfranchised, e.g. women, children, the homeless, and a large and growing population of Bosnian immigrants.
Methods
The Dubuque appreciative inquiry is based in the “4-I” concept—Inquire, Imagine, Innovate, and Implement. This project engaged all the stakeholders in Appreciative Interviews, dialogue, and planning for the future over the course of 1½ years. Consultants completed approximately 220 interviews, held a summit conference to discover shared values, and created task forces for citizens to explore issues at greater depths. Interviews focused on high points of experience in a place, or what citizens most value. A planning committee identified key stakeholders and citizens to interview, and consultants trained 60 volunteers to assist with the interviews. The Summit focused on developing “provocative propositions,” or bold statements about what citizens would like to see in the future. An “Action Conference” a year later brought together 80 citizens who represented all factions involved in the housing issues; the group defined a strategy and created a long-term plan for solving housing issues. Finally, the Housing Department focused on implementing the recommendations and a group of 30 citizens was convened to evaluate the process and results.
Outcomes
The Action Conference ended with seven self-organized task forces who continued their work after the conference. Their ideas, plans and recommendations were incorporated into the City’s Consolidated Plan for Housing, Community and Economic Development, 2000-2005. The evaluation team also identified a number of transformational results in the City government, including an increase in communication and interaction between the Housing Department and citizens; new collaborative methods for the Housing Department to test policies; and a comprehensive vision statement for the City. This project and process won two national awards: A National Best Practices Award from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1999, and an Award of Merit from the National Association of Housing Redevelopment Officials, 2000.
The process showed that including citizens in developing solutions to city-wide issues can be highly successful, and lead to much greater confidence in using participatory processes for other aspects of service provision. For example, one of the task forces launched a comprehensive downtown planning process that brought together diverse stakeholders to address complex issues of downtown planning and re-development.
Evaluation
The 30-member evaluation group convened after a three-year period. The group unanimously agreed that the AI process was responsible for a number of accomplishments and activities.
Innovative Ideas
This work was designed to function as a consensus-building, collaborative process that would lead to shared commitment, responsibility taking and action. A group historian (a sociologist) reported on the work:
The Action Conference emerged as an alternative model to making policy through “non-control planning.” Several key elements were to some extent present: consensus of values, decentralization of power, widespread participation in decision-making, cultural diversity and inclusion, building trust, work in non-hierarchical model, based on a belief of self-reliance, integration of diverse activities outside of the workday such as song, dance, and poetry, and listening with a genuine belief in the intelligence of others.
DUBUQUE AI AT A GLANCE
COMMUNITY TYPE
Urban/suburban
AREA
27.7 square miles
POPULATION
57,798 (2005 city)
91,631 (2005 metro)
LOCATION
Eastern Iowa
PROCESS
Appreciative Inquiry
PROJECT LEADERS
City of Dubuque
Iowa Housing Corporation
EnCompass LLC
PROJECT THEMES
Housing
Poverty