Jane Fonda on how "community means power"

As agencies, nonprofits, families, and individuals make contingency plans upon contingency plans in face of all the uncertainty of this moment, I wanted to share some words - courtesy of Jane Fonda - of both hope and action (which were PoP Health’s wish + invitation for 2025…which, two months in, feels like it has already lasted about two years).

I’m not really up on pop culture or Hollywood, but I’ve been deeply impressed with Jane Fonda ever since I heard a podcast interview with her a couple years ago - what a life, what energy, and what commitment. In an industry where it is especially easy to ignore, pay lip service to, or throw a few pennies at societal problems, she’s been on the ground trying to fight for change.

So, I didn’t hesitate to click on the video of her speech at the SAG awards a week ago, where she received the Life Achievement Award (transcript here for the readers out there). And I’m so glad I did.

Here are my key takeaways:

• “Community means power.” - She talked about how unions have our backs and give us power, and I’d add to that all the other ways of coming together in sustained, structured ways - community coalitions, co-ops, neighborhood associations and groups. Create them, join them, sustain them.

• “Empathy is not weak or woke.” - This statement stands by itself, but Fonda had more to say about empathy. First, she connected it to the job of actors - “...we don't manufacture anything tangible. What we create is empathy.” Indeed, I’m a big believer in storytelling and its importance in creating empathy as well as inspiring and persuading. Which brings us to Fonda’s next point about empathy - “And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent, because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.” I could not agree more. To sneak in some words from Rebecca Solnit, who I’ve been turning to often over the last couple months, “You need to pitch a big tent and welcome everyone who might come in, even if they came over recently and weren't always there. No one knows what it is going to take to overcome the current crisis…I do know that it's going to take a lot. The more the better.” As Solnit goes on to point out, “unwelcoming committees from people more interested in being right than effective” are self-destructive to the causes we support.

• “We are in our documentary moments. This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal.” - Fonda urged us to take this seriously, be brave, stay in community, and take action. And it’s not enough to just be against things. Fonda underscored, “We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future. One that is beckoning, welcoming, that will help people believe.”

As Fonda went on to say, “Let’s make it so,” Reader.

In your coalitions and your work, how are you projecting an inspiring vision of the future, widening your tent, staying empathetic, and building community power? Drop me a note and let me know. And let me know if you disagree about what we need right now too - disagreements are always welcome here.

And, for those looking for more concrete advice on how your coalitions, organizations, and agencies can take action in your communities to transform health - a quick save the date: April 2nd, noon ET, on Zoom, join PoP Health for a free action planning webinar. You'll learn about the #1 missing ingredient that's preventing your action plan from getting the results you want + details on how to follow our 5-step action planning process to go from feeling stuck to feeling like a superhero. Register here!

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

What organizing IS and ISN'T

Unfortunately, everything is still on fire, and the public’s health (and SO much else) remains under threat.

I talked earlier this month about how taking action requires a) actually planning and committing to take action and b) organizing.

But what even is organizing?

Today, I want to share a little primer on what organizing IS and what it IS NOT.

Most of the content here is from a National Academies panel with Jamila Michener and Jonathan Heller during a workshop earlier this month on democracy and governance.

Organizing IS NOT merely mobilizing.

During this panel, an attendee asked an excellent question - we’re talking about organizing to protect and advance democracy and public health, but what about all those that are organizing against those goals? Couldn’t one argue that those who don’t share these goals have basically organized us out of a democracy at this point? In their response to this question, the panelists drew a distinction between organizing (where the process of organizing has to be a democratic one and develop the critical consciousness of those involved) and mobilizing (which is just about putting people into movement, even if it’s “astroturf” or other such entities telling the community what to believe).

Organizing IS NOT merely “individuals brandishing banners stating scatter goals”.

You’ve heard me quote Grant Ennis on this before, but it bears repeating. Historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.” We need organizational weight and structure behind demands in order to sustain the efforts to make the demands reality beyond a single protest or set of protests/actions.

Organizing IS about both building and breaking power.

The panel I mentioned was titled “Building and Breaking Power” and I think this distinction is so important. I loved how they broke down these concepts. Building power in community looks like community organizing, developing coalitions, starting social movements. Breaking power where corporate interests (or, random unelected billionaires, as the case may be) have too much of it looks like profit minimization, regulation, enforcement - and, I would add, as I heard chanted at a recent rally, it looks like litigating, legislating, agitating, and resisting. Both building and breaking power involve negotiation and storytelling and making and pursuing collective demands.

Organizing IS about a lot more than just direct action.

Don’t get me wrong, direction action is important (I’ve been dusting off my long forgotten bubble letter/coloring skills and running my daughters’ markers dry these last couple weeks making signs for rallies), but it’s just one component of organizing. During the panel I mentioned, they shared many different concepts that make up the idea of organizing (from a forthcoming publication called “Let’s Talk: Community Organizing”). I’ve organized them into three groups below.

There are aspects of organizing related to internal change in those involved:

• Increasing their sense of control/agency/power;

• Increasing their ability to reflect critically and hold complexity (which relates to the prior point about how organizing isn’t merely mobilizing);

• Building their capacity - to identify problems, to identify change targets (that solve problems, unify the base, and build power), to organize, and to collectively solve problems.

There are aspects of organizing related to external change by other actors:

• Making demands and taking actions (including via campaigns/initiatives).

And there are aspects of organizing related to structural change in how the organizing is happening (this relates to the prior point about how organizing isn’t just individuals brandishing banners):

• Building a base, “expand[ing] the number of people impacted by problems in their community who are in relationship with one another and involved in collective action”;

• Developing leadership, “shifting from private shame about the problems they face to a public stance, and [building] leadership to solve these problems”;

• Forming an organization to coalesce and sustain power (this one is incredibly important - without the structure of an organization, it's extremely difficult to keep efforts coordinated and sustained).

I continue to feel that the only way out of the many messes our country is currently in is through meaningful, effective organizing. I hope this primer is a helpful lens through which to think about it.

And I hope PoP Health's upcoming free webinar on action planning for community coalitions and launch of a new initiative that aims to change the narrative and inspire organizing to build and break power (and make organizing itself easier and more effective!) help too - we'll be sharing dates for these launches soon.

In the meantime - keep taking action! I really love this distillation of different ways (and varying levels of effort) to do something in support of democracy - https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Taking action when everything is on fire

Whew, it's been a couple weeks, hasn't it?

Public health is being further threatened than it already was in every direction - halting of foreign aid work; an attempted coup in the form of a spending freeze; an anti-vaccine skeptic nominated to lead the nation's health agency; the list - sadly - goes on.

And the opposition to these threats? It's been weak, slow, and completely insufficient. I don't mean opposition as in people ranting about and posting about and discussing these problems. I mean opposition as in actually taking action.

And why is that? I think there are two key issues here:

1. Actually taking action isn't a central part of enough our organizations’, agencies’, and coalitions’ (not to mention politicians') ethos, frameworks, and plans. Speeches and reports and "awareness raising" and "information sharing" are not ACTION. And here’s the thing - nothing changes until we act.
​
2. We aren't organized!! And it's not entirely our fault. Our civic infrastructure has been ravaged by everything from land use policy (which prevents the kind of community building we need to foster the trust, conversation, and connection that is foundational to organizing) to restrictions on 501c3 lobbying (while leaving corporate lobbying, political influence, and in a word, corruption, unchecked) to the decimation of local news (which is needed to hold local policymakers and others accountable, foster community action, and more) to the weakening of community, labor, and other organizations that could actually put weight behind advocacy demands and see them to fruition.
​
So we can call our congresspeople or join protests, but without actual, meaningful, and long-term organizing, we're not going to be nearly effective enough.

I've been giving both the action and organizing points above a lot of thought, even before the chaos of the last couple weeks.
​
On the action front, PoP Health will be offering a FREE live class for community coalitions sometime this Spring, all about why every community health coalition needs a strong action plan - and the process they need to get there. Community-rooted work is more important than ever right now, and with a strong planning process, your coalitions can deepen your impact and build community power.
​
On the organizing front, we've got some wheels in motion, but it's early yet - stay tuned for more details, and please reach out if you have ideas to share or want to be involved. Also please drop me a note if you've seen examples of or are involved in taking organized action against the current threats to public health.

As Grant Ennis notes in his book Dark PR, historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.”

And as I heard in a conversation about the role of democracy in population health yesterday, protests and other forms are direction are a component of organizing, but they are the not the entirety of organizing. There's a lot more to organizing effectively - stay tuned for the next Community Threads newsletter for more on that.

Everything that's happening right now is a LOT, but I still have hope we can find ways to come together to not just act in opposition, but to proactively put forth different - and more compelling - narratives, values, and ways of shaping our policies and our communities.

We can do this.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Why we must ACT in 2025

I opened the new year inviting you to join PoP Health at the intersection of hope and action to transform health in our communities.

Earlier this month, we dove into the idea of hope.

Today, we’re focused on ACTION.

I’m all about capturing data to understand community needs - but does it sometimes feel like all we’re doing is defining (and redefining) the problem, listing challenges and barriers, and adding proof points that the problem exists?

I think sometimes we get paralyzed thinking we need more - more information, more resources, more time - instead of figuring out how to ACT in the here and now, with what we have.

I heard a great example of this at a workshop this past Fall, from an organization called Beyond Housing in St. Louis. Their CEO shared the simple framework they use to guide their work: Ask, Align, Act. “We ask for the community’s input to identify priorities, align resources, and act toward fulfilling a common vision.”

It sounds SO simple. Yet, many organizations and agencies aren’t doing this.

Part of that, of course, is because it isn’t actually simple to identify priorities or align resources, much less act. There are so many complexities and challenges, and I don’t want to diminish those.

Yet, that’s only part of the story. Many organizations and agencies aren’t even trying to act, at least not in a meaningful way.

I think the first step towards taking meaningful action is doing what Beyond Housing has done - make ACTION a central component of your organization’s ethos, framework, plan.

The results can be impressive. Just check out what Beyond Housing has done - https://beyondhousing.org/about/our-work/.

Here’s the thing - nothing changes until we act.

We also can’t learn what works - and perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t work - until we act.

It’s in this spirit of taking action that we here at PoP Health will be offering a FREE live class for community coalitions this Spring, all about why every community health coalition needs an action plan - and the process they need to get there. Stay tuned for more details!

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Why we must HOPE in 2025

How is the start of your year?

I hope it is off to a great start, but I know too that many across the country are experiencing hard times just weeks into the new year.

Regardless of where on the spectrum your year so far falls, I stand by what I shared last week: I believe wholeheartedly that it is at the intersection of hope and action that we can work together to transform health in our communities. So in this issue and the next, I’d like to break down each of those concepts.

Today, we’re focused on HOPE.

Especially as we’re coming up on inauguration, following an election that demonstrated just how polarized communities across our country are, holding on to hope feels even more important - and yet, even harder - than before.

But hope we must.

Like many others, I found much hope in Rebecca Slonit’s words post election.

I encourage you to read her brief post in its entirety, but here are three pieces that stood out to me:

"You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving."

"People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good."

"Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed."

Within her words, there are three important lessons about hope:

• Hope does not mean we hold onto an unfounded belief that we can save everything - but it does mean embracing the reality that we can save SOME things and those things are worth saving.

• Hope does not mean you feel good. I think we conflate feeling hopeful with feeling good in the moment, right now. It’s possible to have hope even when you’re feeling heartbroken, even when you’re feeling furious, even when you’re feeling deflated, even when you’re feeling skeptical. In fact, it is especially important to hold on to hope when you’re feeling these other emotions.

• We hope because we - all of us, our lives, our dreams, our destinies - are connected and while the threads that connect us are “stained and torn”, they are also perpetually being “woven and mended and washed”.

So thank you, for weaving and mending and washing these Community Threads with us. Let’s keep at it.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Movements need weavers and warriors

What a week.

In the last issue of Community Threads, I spoke about how voting isn’t enough - that we need to organize movements. That remains true regardless of who wins an election or which political party is in power.

We need to come together - in a highly organized, long-term, consistent way - to make collective demands for concrete changes. We need movements.

And movements need both weavers and warriors.

Weavers that bring separate threads together to create a collective fabric - that bring organizations and individuals together for a common purpose, that build stronger connections, that persuade more people to join together, that reach across aisles, that take collective action.

Warriors that fight for the changes they want to see - that go up against power, that resist what they know is not right, that protest against injustice.

I’ve always considered myself a weaver - everything from the name of this newsletter (Community Threads) to PoP Health’s logo (which emphasizes interconnectedness) go back to the ideas of working together for collective impact. It’s why I love working with community coalitions and collaboratives.

And yet, I find myself venturing more into warrior territory these days. PoP Health has a new initiative coming down the pike (in Spring 2025) that’s focused on putting political and economic power back in the hands of communities, as opposed to corporate interests. And it has me fired up.

It makes me wonder if those of us who have both weavers and warriors in us - and those spaces where weavers and warriors can come together - could be valuable to the work of organizing movements.

Because a few things are clear.

A lot of weaving in the community health space has involved admiring the problem, as opposed to solving it. A lot of weaving has focused so much on achieving consensus with everyone (even the corporate interests that are working against public health goals) that the end results have been weak and watered down actions.

On the flip side, a lot of warriors in the community health space have failed to widen their tent and expand their coalition. A lot of warriors have failed to coordinate and coalesce around concrete demands in consistent, sustained ways.

Movements need weavers and warriors (and those who see both in themselves). Who are you? A weaver, a warrior, both? And has your answer changed over time, like mine? Drop me a line and let me know!

Ultimately, successful movements need weavers that build agreement and collective, sustained action around the concrete demands of warriors.

As I said last time, history shows us it’s possible. Let’s get to work.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Why voting isn’t enough

With election day fast approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about voting. 

At an event I was at a few weeks ago, someone brought up the distinction between technocratic strategies and democratic strategies - that technocratic strategies focus on policy (which is necessary, but not sufficient, to transform health in our communities) while democratic strategies focus on politics (which is all about POWER). 

We can’t transform health in our communities without democratic strategies that center power.  And as Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” If we don’t demand change, power concedes nothing, and we’re left where we started. 

And up until recently, I thought about voting as one of the only ways I personally could demand change. 

Yes, I could call my legislators or sign a petition or join a protest, but those things never seemed all that effective to me. 

And I finally figured out why. 

I just finished the book Dark PR, by Grant Ennis (highly recommend, and you’ll be hearing more about it from me!), and he lays out both why “just voting” isn’t enough and why other political actions in the modern day “fall flat”. 

Ennis talks about “just voting” as a “harmful narrative”. 

“If we are deceived into believing that citizenship begins and ends with voting, we risk losing sight of the fact that a healthy democracy requires citizen association and political action in addition to voter participation. Democratic participation involves starting, actively organizing, and participating in citizen groups that continuously demand change. Democracy is in danger if we fail to understand that it requires much more than ‘just voting’.” 

And the citizen association piece is the key to why the political actions I had available to me (call my legislators, sign a petition, join a protest, and so on) always seemed ineffective. 

Ennis writes, “Citizens ‘just protest’ at the expense of meaningful citizen organizing and targeted political action.” It’s not that protests are always ineffective, but if we are mobilizing without organizing, if we are mobilizing without concrete and substantial demands, then we are engaging in “aggregate individual behavior” as opposed to a true collective movement. 

He contrasts how historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.” 

Don’t get me wrong, I remain a proud voter, and think everyone eligible should absolutely vote in every election. And that changes are needed to make it easier to vote. 

But it’s not enough. 

And neither are individually calling our legislators or showing up to a one-off protest. 

We need to organize movements.  We need to make it so we call our legislators and sign petitions and join protests in ways that ARE effective because they are organized, collective demands for concrete changes that are long-term and consistent. History shows us it’s possible. 

More on movements soon. In the meantime, let’s vote! 

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

The most important question to ask yourself when action planning

🍁Happy Fall🍁 

It’s the season of sweaters and apple picking and pumpkin spice. 

And my personal favorite - the changing colors of the leaves. There is this incredible tree in our neighborhood, visible from our front door, that turns brilliant shades of yellow and orange and red over the course of the transition from summer to fall. The very top of the tree has just started to change color. 

Over the course of the next several weeks, the entire tree will gradually change color until it’s brilliantly aflame, and then the leaves will start to fall, until eventually the tree is left bare. It’s a transition I love watching. 

One of the amazing things about Fall colors - every leaf is unique. The shape, the shades, the imperfections. They’re each adding unique value and, ultimately, when we look at the tree as a whole, creating a sum that’s greater than its parts. 

This is exactly how I want us to think of our coalitions and their membership. 

And it leads to what I think is the single most important question to ask yourself during coalition action planning - 

What’s our unique value add? 

What do we collectively bring to the table that other organizations/agencies/actors in our community don’t? 

What can we do that others are not doing and cannot do? 

What gap can we fill?

Grounding your action planning in this question about unique value add is vital. 

I’ve been working with two very different coalitions recently, and in both, we’ve intentionally rooted action planning efforts in this question. 

There is a school mental health coalition where we’ve articulated this unique value add as the three prongs of our mission statement - and that mission statement is now driving our action planning, both for the coalition as a whole, as well as for specific pilot projects. 

There is a rural health coalition where we’ve honed in on mobile care as a key focus area. We’re still in the process of articulating our unique value add, but we’re centering that as the key goal of our initial information gathering with mobile care providers in the region. We’re aiming to understand their experiences, challenges, and opportunities, and get their direct input about where our coalition can add unique value to what’s already happening in the community. Is it as a convener? As an advocate? As a data gathering and sharing entity? As something else? To be determined, but the answer(s) will drive our action planning, and ensure that whatever we end up doing is actually valuable and not duplicative or counterproductive to existing efforts. 

Along with the question of what our unique value add is as a coalition, a couple important bonus questions to consider: 

• What can we create that’s greater than the sum of its parts? The whole point of a coalition is to bring together multiple entities for collective action - so what can we create by working together that’s more than what we could accomplish simply working in parallel?

• What is each organization and individual’s unique role within the coalition? The key to recruitment and retention of coalition members is ensuring they have clear roles and responsibilities that they are uniquely suited for. 

So, as we commence this Fall season, I invite you to explore or revisit the question of what your unique value add is - as an individual, as an organization, and as a coalition. Send me your thoughts!

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

HOW to get to action with your collaborative: tips and tools for brainstorming, prioritizing, and more

Is it just me, or are you feeling the Maycember vibes too?

In addition to counting down to the end of the school year and to summer, I know many nonprofits and coalitions are also nearing the end of their fiscal year, which means new grants and projects might be on the horizon - so it’s a great time to think about what effective action planning looks like.

If you missed the last issue of Community Threads, be sure to check it out first, as it provides an overview of PoP Health’s action planning framework. With that framework in mind, today’s issue is diving into HOW we can implement that framework to get our collaboratives to action. Without further ado, let’s dive in, Q&A style.
​

Can you share some tips for action planning?

Move towards the middle. It might be tempting to start with the question of “What should we do?” But this is exactly the wrong place to start. Begin by grounding yourself, with a particular focus on 1) orienting towards root causes and systems (otherwise, it’s easy to end up with a plan that attempts to place bandaids on the most visible/urgent problems, without diving into the underlying structures and root causes that created those problems) and 2) defining your coalition’s unique value-add (what do you collectively bring to the table that other organizations/agencies/actors in your community don’t?). Then, jump straight to the end - what impact do you wish to have? What are you seeking to change? Get as specific as possible. With the beginning and the end clearly defined, then work towards the middle to define your specific action steps in a way that addresses root causes, aligns with your value-add, and helps achieve your desired impact.

Brainstorm with abandon. Think small and think big at the same time with 15% and 15x solutions. Consider what is your 15% where you have the discretion and freedom to act without more resources and authority and what actions you can take immediately. Also consider what big idea you would recommend if you were to be 15 times bolder, and what the first step towards that idea would be. We can both be empowered by the things we can do fully within our circle of influence and inspired by the things that are more aspirational and transformational. Also consider unique brainstorming questions - I saw a great thread on this recently on LinkedIn, here are some of the ones that stood out to me:

• Your goal is to get fired: What ideas are you proposing?

• What’s one thing you see others do, and you’re thinking it’s crazy we’re not doing it?

• Pick a problem the organization needs to solve. Tell me how you'd solve it with an unlimited budget. Tell me how you'd solve it with no budget. (This is similar to the 15%/15x solution approach!)

Niche down. As we often hear in the consulting world, there are “riches in the niches.” When you “niche down” and narrow your audience and services, you can speak to that very specific audience in a way that resonates deeply and makes people recognize that you understand and can address their specific needs. It’s the same for any work or communication we undertake, whether as a coalition or an organization - we can’t be everything to everyone, but if we “niche down,” we might be surprised at just how effective we can be.

Develop infrastructure for responsive feedback and continuous quality improvement. Making sure you are flexible and nimble enough to be responsive to feedback and continually improve is the linchpin of the entire action planning framework we’ve laid out. And you can’t leave that to chance (believe me, I’ve been there…everyone has the best of intentions, but then, life happens, and there’s simply no time/bandwidth/buy-in to take stock of things regularly and make changes accordingly). Instead, build the infrastructure at the outset so time, resources, and systems are already in place to ensure regular monitoring and the careful analysis of monitoring information and the implementation of course corrections and improvements based on that analysis. Hold yourselves accountable - it will boost your impact by leaps and bounds.

What are some specific strategies for action planning?

Action planning is such a rich, multi-step process that I can’t pick just a few specific strategies as I’ve done for other elements of our C.A.P.E. process. Instead, I’m going to identify some key sets of approaches.

Brainstorming approaches: Here at PoP health, we love using post-its during in-person brainstorms and virtual equivalents on Zoom (Jamboard (which is sunsetting soon) or Mural are what we usually use; you can also have people throw ideas into the chat). For more detailed, in-depth, and asynchronous brainstorming, we love using Google Sheets - we try to structure the sheets in a very clear way and then let folks add their ideas in the appropriate sheets/rows/columns in response to particular categories, questions, types of information, etc.

Prioritization approaches: For in-person prioritization, sticker dots are our favorite (they even sell glittery ones, which can add some pizazz to your meetings). Mentimeter can also be great for in-person or virtual settings where you want to share results in real-time. For asynchronous prioritization, a virtual survey can be a great tool.

Action plan writing approaches: We’ve had success drawing a timeline on flipchart paper and having people place their action steps (each one written on a post note) on the literal timeline, and even taking an extra step to match each action step with a particular organization/person. We also love a good action plan template - the timeline idea can help with identifying the action, who’s responsible, and timing, but often we also want to identify the resources required, the collaborators required, potential barriers and how to address them, and who needs to be informed about the action.

What are some resources to help me action plan with our collaborative?

Here are just a few examples of resources we here at PoP Health have found helpful. This is by no means a comprehensive list - please email us to share other resources and tools you’ve found helpful in action planning with your collaborative!

• ​Liberating Structures (sidenote: I’ve seen these used poorly/thoughtlessly, but when used intentionally and judiciously, they can fulfill their intended potential and “foster lively participation in groups of any size” in a way that moves you further along your action planning process).

• ​The Best Brainstorming Tools of 2024 (+ Tips and Techniques)​

• ​7 Essential Project Management Techniques In 2024​

I hope these tips, strategies, and resources help plant some helpful seeds in terms of action planning with your collaborative. It can be an overwhelming, “one step forward, two steps back” kind of journey. But hopefully it is also a meaningful and productive journey towards an actionable plan that can create real change in your community.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Get to ACTION to transform health in your community with PoP Health's action planning framework

I have an extra hop in my step and a desperate desire to GET. THINGS. DONE. (Currently at the top of my home list is tackling a round of Spring cleaning, beginning with our completely out-of-control basement…but I digress).

How about you?

In our work with community coalitions, getting to ACTION is often a major pain point. So let’s dive right in.

What do you mean by action planning?

Sometimes it’s easier to start with what I don’t mean, and this is one of those times.

Action planning is not information sharing. It’s not learning. It’s not defining your strategy. It’s not writing a plan or a report.

These can all be important components of action planning, but only as a means to an end. And that end is intentional, purposeful action. What are you doing and what tangible change in your community is it associated with?

We’ll get more into specific strategies for action planning in our next newsletter, but for now, let’s wrap our minds around what action planning is.

What are some ways to think about action planning?

There are a bazillion action planning frameworks and templates out there (and so many acronyms! SWOT, PDSA, SMART, the list goes on).

How I feel about them is best captured by the quote “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Here at PoP Health, we’ve waded through the action planning acronym soup on many an occasion, and where we’ve landed is here: our own action planning framework (hot off the presses!) - uniquely tailored to collaboratives and coalitions seeking to transform health in their communities through policy and systems change. As with any other model, there are ways in which it will be “wrong” - but we also believe (and can vouch for from experience!) that it is useful.

And while I always hesitate to throw yet another framework out into the world, this one has arisen naturally from our work over the years, and represents our best effort to synthesize many hard-learned lessons as we’ve navigated this space side-by-side with community coalitions and collaboratives.

Introducing PoP Health’s Action Planning Framework

• Grounding Phase: First and foremost, root your action planning in a deep and shared understanding of: the community and key actors; your collaborative’s unique value add and mission; and the nature of the problem(s) and root causes(s) on one end and desired outcomes and vision on the other end.

• Brainstorming Phase: Once you are grounded, brainstorm with abandon. Get the most outlandish, impractical ideas out there. Get the most exciting, transformational ideas out there. Get the most narrow, incremental ideas out there. Get the most bizarre, eyebrow-raising ideas out there. And everything in between.

• Prioritizing Phase: After you have brainstormed with abandon, niche down. You simply cannot be everything to everyone or do everything. Be ruthless in prioritizing - you must make hard choices to do some things and not do others. Make those hard choices based on all that you’ve grounded yourself in in the grounding phase, plus other key criteria your collaborative defines collectively.

• Planning Phase: Only once you have prioritized can you truly plan. This is where you define the exact what/when/how/where/who of it all. Get specific. Where you are exploring, start small - consider pilots and minimum value products. Where you are confident in what works, focus on scaling up.

• Acting + Iterating Phase: Now you are ready: Just do it. Then iterate. Don’t get stuck in the prior phases or spend too long in them. Ultimately, we won’t learn nearly enough until we take action. So just do it - but know that you will need to iterate. Be prepared with the structures/systems needed for continuous quality improvement/responsive feedback, and know the basis on which you’ll decide whether something is working or not (more on evaluation and learning to come in future newsletters!).

What questions should I be asking myself about how we action plan?

• Is your action planning grounded in your collaborative’s UNIQUE value add? What can you do that others are not doing and cannot do? What gap can you fill?

• Who are the targets and agents of change who hold the power/authority/influence to make the changes you are seeking? Are they around your collaborative table during the action planning process? If not, should they be? If not, how will you influence them?

• Have you created a safe space for action planning to occur? Have you unearthed and addressed power dynamics, political constraints, and other conditions that might impact the level of honesty and engagement collaborative members and community members bring to the action planning table?

• Is your action planning process taking into account the realities on-the-ground? When the rubber meets the road, all kinds of roadblocks arise - have you anticipated them and do you have a plan for addressing them? Are there some roadblocks that are - at least for now - insurmountable, and thus require rethinking what actions make sense to undertake?
  ​

These are tough questions, and getting to action is no easy task. But if your collaborative can move through these phases in a thoughtful way, you can chart a path to inspiring and mobilizing concrete, meaningful action and transforming health in your community. Here’s to taking the first steps down that path - remember, just do it, then iterate. More on HOW to move through these phases in our next newsletter!

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!