There’s a Course for That! Mobilizing Your Community To Become a Strong Town

“I posted a note to my community’s Facebook group saying, ‘If you like some of the changes that are happening here, let’s meet up!’” 

Those words sparked something inside of me the moment I first heard them several years ago. They continue to reverberate through my psyche even now. You could say that those words opened a mental door for me to finally take the actions that I knew my community needed me to take. 

Cary Westerbeck of Botthellites for People-Oriented Places (BoPOP) uttered those words while describing the origins of his group on an episode of The Bottom-up Revolution podcast. 

They hooked me. There was an elegant simplicity to what Cary said. 

He wasn’t starting a Facebook brawl or jamming facts down the throats of the folks who were cranky online, because when has that ever helped? 

Instead, Cary was signaling a readiness to start a small, simple thing: a movement. He was inviting a conversation to begin with the goal of changing the community of Botthell, Washington, for good. 

I realized that I needed to go out and do something similar in my community of Delta, British Columbia. I wanted it to have a similar focus as Cary’s group and to follow a similar path. Deltans for People-Oriented Places (DelPOP) was born in 2021, and we drew a ton of inspiration from BoPOP and its cousin O-POP (Olympians for People-Oriented Places). A group began to meet once a month and we began to see a shift in the conversation around housing and land use in our city. We arrange community meetings and go on walks together. We talk about the changes happening in our city and applaud the ones that we’re happiest about. We are helping Delta become a more people-oriented community. 

Mobilizing Your Community to Become a Strong Town: A New Academy Course

The challenge of starting to take action in your community is that you feel like an impostor who should wait for someone else or a jaded observer convinced that nothing good will come from trying. 

Well, I think I have something exciting to offer you, because there’s another way to feel: you can be an equipped enthusiast. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been preparing the finishing touches on a new course that Chuck Marohn recorded recently on how to take action where you live. Let’s just say that I am excited for this resource to become available soon! Every lesson contains fascinating insights and ideas that will help you to be effective as an advocate in your community. Every lesson comes with a batch of recommendations of articles, podcast episodes, and videos to explore if you want to take your time going through the course. 

Honestly, I wish I’d had this course when I was just starting out. If you, like me, have ever wondered, “Just how exactly do I ‘keep doing what you can to build a strong town?’ I think this course will help you to come up with solid answers.

You can check out all of the course details below or visit academy.strongtowns.org to get started. Let’s do this!

Course Title: Mobilizing Your Community to Become a Strong Town

Instructor: 

Chuck Marohn

Course Description: 

You want your community to change. You also want these changes to be received well by others. You want them to share a vision of what’s possible with you and take steps to accomplish that vision together. 

Join Charles Marohn of Strong Towns and two special guests in this 14-part video series which will ground you in an approach to mobilizing your community that will help you make it become a strong town.

Every lesson comes with a conversation starter question and a connection starter prompt. You get to decide what you start with these—will you get a small group together and talk about this?

You will also find a host of recommended resources to explore at the end of each lesson. You might need to bookmark a few for later if you want to actually finish the course.

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