This page provides an overview of how community coaching has evolved and is rapidly becoming an important component in the community change work success.

Community coaching definitions
A simple definition: A community coach is a guide who supports communities and organizations in identifying and achieving their goals.

Overview
Community coaches work with a whole group or team, the leaders and some-times on a one-on-one basis. They help community leaders assess readiness for community change. They coach for results as they help a team get unstuck and move forward. Coaches help leaders develop strong, trusting relationships within a team and across the community; they help create rela- tionships that link leaders to resources, information and potential partnerships. Community coaches play a key role in crafting opportunities for leaders to learn from their experiences by creat- ing space for reflection. Coaches also encourage leaders to reach out to the whole community, to stretch beyond the first glance of what is possible, and reach for a more vibrant and sustain- able community. Finally, coaching helps leaders lean toward resilience by inno- vating new approaches and developing and monitoring sustainable strategies for change.

Community coaching answers four key trends in supporting and sustaining community change initiatives.

1. Rapidly Changing Communities. The rise of the Information Age has required changes in the practice of community economic development and organizational development. No longer can we rely on the expertise of others to guide us and external resources to support us. Communities, organizations and their leaders must identify and build on their own assets and, at the same time, find ways to expand their ability to learn from one another and from the world around them. Place-based approaches address the unique challenges and opportunities of geography. Change work is often described as emergent: each situation requires its own solution; and generative: our work together creates positive change as we go forward. There is no clear map to the future; we must create it as we live it. Coaching offers communities a way to make use of promising practices and outside expertise by learning how to adapt those practices and knowledge to existing community assets and capacity by integrating local wisdom, and supporting the creation of new ways of seeing and doing.
2. New Leadership Structures. Foundations, corporations and agencies have poured millions of dollars into succession planning as boomers retire and organizations restructure around new leadership strategies. Coaches aid people in recognising the assets of traditional and non-traditional leaders, while at the same time framing the work in ways that lead to the development of new leadership structures that are more fluid, adaptable and engaging.
3. Increased Emphasis on Impact. The fields of life coach, executive coach and personal coach are growing as people struggle with ways to achieve their goals and adapt to our rapidly changing world. Similarly, communities and organizations are looking for ways to learn about change, apply what they have learned and reflect on that process. Coaching offers a different approach, one that facilitates leaders’ ability to energize and mobilize people around a change agenda, and helps community institutions become learning organizations.
4. Increased Return on Investment. More foundations are supporting coaching as a way to increase long-term benefits of community change initiatives. Coaching increases the return on investment in capacity building, leadership development and economic development efforts for outside funders and local investors. The use of a coach can help communities find ways to sustain new leadership, develop new capacities and create economic change. 

The Art and Craft of Coaching Community Change
What exactly is coaching that facilitates community change? Communities, like people, need to grow through their problems. To do so, community members learn to see issues and concerns from a broader perspective as an opportunity to learn from one another and expand their options. The work of a community coach helps people move beyond their stories about why things can’t or won’t work. By focusing them away from their stuck-in-the-rut stories and replacing those with stories that speak to the strengths and opportunities that abound in any community, the coach can move people out of the negative conversations that keep them from taking action. At a very basic level, successful community coaching moves people from a needs-based approach to an asset or strength based approach to community work. Coaching for communities means offering an empathetic ear, finding the coachable moments and engaging in joint learning. Coaches do not provide the answers; they support capacity building by helping community members learn from one anotherand from their own experiences in order to find their own solutions.

Content used with the courtesy of:
A Field Guide to Community Coaching developed by Mary Emery, PhD, Ken Hubbell and Becky Miles-Polka and Published with the support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Kellogg Action Lab at Fieldstone Alliance, and the Northwest Area Foundation.