Lighthouse Community Center
Community Building and Visioning

Initial Situation—January 2004

The Lighthouse Community Center (LCC) provides three types of services: a facility offering safe physical and emotional space for meetings, information and referral, and social/educational events. It serves the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) community and their allies in Southern Alameda County, Ca. Throughout its four-year history, it has been an entirely volunteer-run organization. Over the year before our work together, both volunteers and financial resources had dropped substantially. The Board of Directors had taken on more and more of the operational responsibility to fill the gaps, resulting in many of them feeling burned out.

Inspiring Results' Response

We conducted a half-day community meeting to explore the Center's future, using Appreciative Inquiry. Initially, the Board asked us to lead a strategic planning retreat for them. After we had some conversation about their hopes and dreams for the Center, they decided they needed to engage a much broader representation of stakeholders in conversation about the Center's future. So this community meeting ultimately included representatives of six community groups as well as Board members and other key LCC volunteers.

We designed the meeting to build community and begin to create a shared vision for the LCC. Participants first conducted appreciative interviews with each other to identify the Center's strengths and their most heart-felt hopes for its future. We then completed the "discovery" and "dream" phases of the 4-D cycle. As a group, we generated a description of the LCC's positive core and a collective list of wishes for the future LCC. The meeting ended with planning next steps; over half the participants volunteered to attend a follow-up meeting.

Results

The community meeting dramatically exceeded the expectations of everyone present. Not only did it accomplish its objective of gathering input, it also engaged the different stakeholders in working toward something they all want—a vital, energized future for the LCC. As a result, it was also a powerful community-building event, illustrated by the following closing comments from participants:

• "I came into the meeting with a list of gripes I wanted to air. We've addressed every one of them in our dreams for the future, and I never had to be negative or critical."
• "It was great to see how committed all of us here are to the Lighthouse—the LCC volunteers and the other community organizations."
• "I never realized before that we all want the same things for the LCC. We really have a shared vision!"
• "It was so wonderful to hear what the LCC has succeeded at, what we're good at, since we often hear only the complaints about us."
• This (Appreciative Inquiry) process was incredibly powerful…. I've never left one of these community meetings feeling so positive or hopeful!"

Six months after the original community meeting, it had produced the following results:

• The LCC Board had three new members, all of whom stepped forward as a direct result of their participation in the AI community meeting. These additional leaders are providing new energy and inspiration and revitalizing the Center's marketing and fundraising efforts.
• Another new volunteer (who also came out of the AI process) had committed to being the volunteer coordinator and rebuilding/creating connections with current and new volunteers.
• The "Appreciative Inquiry Steering Team" had identified strategic priorities and initiatives, gotten the Board's approval, and is beginning the implementation process.