Facilitation & Community Engagement

The Community Building Institute (CBI) provides facilitation and community engagement services in a wide array of organizational and community settings.  CBI President, William Potapchuk, brings an energetic and lively presence to meetings, helping participants engage in constructive dialogue, often with the goal of finding practical, synergistic agreements.

Potapchuk has facilitated groups ranging in size from a half dozen to several hundred.  His wide-ranging knowledge of education, children and youth, environment, and other community issues helps groups dig below the surface in ways that build a shared understanding of the issues, the challenges, and the opportunities.  Many of the groups with which Potapchuk has worked engage diverse participants who do not bring a history of positive interaction.  His style and approach helps break down barriers and build relationships.

Potapchuk also designs and leads community engagement efforts.  Constructively engaging residents and stakeholders in the development of public policy, programs, and services is central to success in many environments.  Diverse approaches – ranging from small discussions settings to large meetings – help the public hold conversations effectively and constructively.

Why Choose CBI? 

CBI combines the theoretical with the practical, the relationships and the task, and a directive approach with the flexibility needed for success.  Our extensive experience across virtually any community issue helps groups achieve results.  In addition, Potapchuk has an academic and applied background in conflict resolution that can be the focus of the work or subtly infused into situations where there are underlying conflicts.

Facilitation Services

Facilitating Coalition Work.  Potapchuk has extensive experience facilitating the work of coalitions, helping members build shared strategy and action plans while navigating deeply ingrained issues.  Clients have included the Children’s Leadership Council, Learning First Alliance, Child Care Now, Baltimore’s Local Management Board, Excellent Schools Detroit, Envision Greater Washington, and DC’s Double the Numbers.

Building Consensus on Policy Issues.  CBI has helped diverse groups build consensus on complex policy issues including a progressive green building ordinance in the District of Columbia, new affordable housing frameworks in Arlington (VA), and a new zoning ordinance for Loudon County (VA).

Working on Tough Internal Issues.  Potapchuk has helped groups struggling with contentious issues find common ground and build strategy.  Efforts have included helping a major national association work on the lack of diversity in their board and senior management, supporting dialogue between a national association and its state chapters on financial and decision making issues, and helping partners in a new nonprofit forge strategic direction amidst conflict over financial and role issues.

Guiding Staff Retreats.  Facilitated sessions ranging in length from a half-day to three-days, focusing on topics from team-building to strategy.  Clients have included DC Children and Youth Investment Trust, Coalition for Community Schools, Pre-K Now, Downtown DC Business Improvement District, and VOICES for America’s Children, among many.

Facilitating Thinking and Working Meetings.  Potapchuk has helped diverse groups come together and explore complex topics creatively and productively.  Projects ranged from helping education leaders explore schools of the future for PDK International, fostering exploratory discussion around federal and state funding for systems building in the early childhood arena for BUILD, and supporting early childhood specialists as they developed guidelines for early childhood data warehouses for the National Data Quality Campaign, National Governors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Community Engagement Projects

CBI believes that, whenever possible, it is best to hire local facilitators to support effective dialogue and deliberation at the community level.  CBI recruits, hires, and trains diverse cohorts of local facilitators as a backbone of most community engagement efforts.

Strategic Planning for Schools, School Districts, and Communities.  CBI has led major community engagement efforts for District of Columbia Public Schools, Newark Public Schools, and Excellent Schools Detroit.  At the heart of these efforts is a belief that the meaningful and authentic engagement of parents and other community members is not only the right thing to do, it is critically important to building support and political will for transformative plans. Meaningful public engagement creates opportunities for focused, open-ended conversation on specific topics. In each of these jurisdictions, CBI designed topically-focused public forums with “conversation stations” staffed by local facilitators.  Forums were held in different parts of the city to ensure widespread participation.  Care was taken to ensure that language and other accessibility issues were addressed.

Strengthening Planning in the District of Columbia.  Served as member of a consulting team leading a multi-year effort for the District of Columbia that included the creation of a two-year performance management cycle where priorities were developed in biennial 2,000 person Citizen Summits, action plans were developed in each of 39 neighborhood clusters, and block-focused engagement strategies were developed for protracted local challenges.  Work included significant team-building and reinvention with participating departments.  Potapchuk’s focus was on rebuilding the neighborhood planning function at the Office of Planning, the design and conduct of the Neighborhood Planning Initiative, the linkage of neighborhood planning to citywide activities, and the Comprehensive Plan.  Designed and facilitated numerous community engagement sessions focused on the neighborhood plans and the Comprehensive Plan.

Selecting Turnaround Partners.  Potapchuk assembled a team to facilitate approximately 20 meetings between the school community of low performing high schools and prospective turnaround partners as the District of Columbia Public Schools was selecting education management organizations.

Fostering Community Dialogue.  The United Way for Southeastern Michigan wanted to create robust community dialogues for those who viewed Waiting for Superman.  CBI designed the dialogue format and recruited Detroit-based facilitators who guided over 50 gatherings.