The White House Community Partnership Summits

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

The White House Community Partnership Summits are day-long programs held in 10 cities across the country, which bring senior Obama Administration officials and Agency staff from diverse policy areas together with civic, community, non-profit and business leaders to discuss issues critical to each particular community, region, and the nation. 

The goals of the White House Community Partnership Summits are:

• Relationship Building—The Summits will establish a space where community leaders can meaningfully engage and interact with key decision and policy makers in the Obama Administration (regional and from Washington) on diverse policy areas that affect their community. 

• Obama Administration 101— The Summits will ensure that participants gain a deeper understanding of the Administration’s work, learn how they can connect with the Federal Government at the local level, and plan for the work yet to be done. 

• Sharing Ideas—Participants will identify policy and programmatic areas of concern to their community.  Administration officials will receive and respond to constructive criticism and feedback, and identify local success stories and practices in policy areas that could benefit other communities across the country.

• Working Together—The Summits will allow participants to connect with each other and Administration officials to bring specific tools to amplify and leverage community solutions. Participants and Administration officials will work together to identify and develop opportunities for leaders and stakeholders to collaborate with the Obama Administration and other leaders from the community and across the country.

The White House Community Partnership Summits will feature an innovative open space dialogue, which allows you to work together with other participants to define the agenda and shape the format.

The Goal

Our goal is to have community leaders working together alongside Administration officials and to move beyond talk to creating commitments to develop new or expanded projects, public‐private partnerships or any other action‐oriented pieces they choose.

What Is Open Space?

If you are tired of conferences or workshops where the speakers don’t cover the issues you want to explore or don’t give you enough time to discuss the topics with your colleagues, the Open Space Process is for you. Open Space is a process designed to take care of the needs of every participant and to build on the many assets and talents that each of you bring into the room. The typical conference questions—who are the speakers? What is the agenda? How long do we have for each topic? Which workshops are they offering?—are irrelevant. Think of the Open Space Process as a day‐long coffee break—that part of a traditional summit where you find the people with whom you really want to connect and talk about the issues most important to you. In the Open Space Process that’s what you do for the entire day, not just at breaks or at lunch before the keynote speeches begin.

How Does the Open Space Process Work?

You identify the specific topics, issues and questions you want to explore and/or share with your colleagues that fit within the overall theme. Together, you create the agenda and place it on a community bulletin board for all to see.

You take the lead to:

• Present what you have learned and want to share with others or open a conversation on a burning question or topic you want to explore with other summit participants where you don’t have answers; Attend only those sessions that truly engage you, for which you feel some passion;
• Begin action planning on how you, other community leaders, and Administration officials can tackle these crucial issues together.
• There will be different levels of knowledge and experience represented by each person participating at the summit.  Open Space is grounded on the principle that there are no hierarchies—all participants have equal status. Everyone is a learner and real world expert who is invited to share what he/she knows or to seek what he/she does not. And, everyone has the responsibility to do what it takes to make the most of the opportunity.

To make the Open Space Process work, we need you to bring four things:

1. Share and Teach — What topics would you be willing to lead? On which issues can you share your experiences and lessons learned or help others who have a similar goal?
2. Learn and Listen — What topics do you want to learn more about from other summit participants? Which discussions would you be willing to convene?
3. Materials and Handouts — Bring any materials or handouts you wish to share with people related to the topics you will lead or co‐lead.
4. Responsibility and Passion — Bring your responsibility to make the process work for everyone, and most importantly, bring your passion.

The Mechanics

At the beginning of the session, each participant who is willing to lead or convene a session makes a short public announcement about the topic; this leads to the creation of the agenda.

Examples of topics that could be covered include:

• Share and Teach: “I run a successful job training program aimed at growing industries that corrects workforce mismatches in the short term and propels traditionally underserved workers into well‐paying jobs in high demand areas of the labor market. Anyone interested in talking about what we’ve learned about running these programs and how we can increase these types of public‐private partnerships should join us in Room A starting at 10 a.m. for a 90‐minute conversation.”
• Learn and Listen: “We have a large number of Spanish‐speaking kids at our schools for the first time in our southeastern state. We have never offered bilingual education programs. We need your help. I’ll help co‐lead the conversation, but we would love to have people that have put together new programs to join us to give us their guidance on how best to set up these programs. We’ll meet in Room B at 9 a.m. for two hours.”

Participants then sign up and join the conversations they are interested in or can offer other possible issues to the group as a whole. And then the fun begins!

Why Open Space?

This process provides each of us with a chance to share our talents, experiences and motivation to better serve your community, your region, and the nation. It is one of the few processes where everyone, not just a handful of speakers, gets the chance to step up and make things happen.

Please join other summit participants for an unforgettable, exhilarating, and energizing experience created, directed, and led by all of you, together. We look forward to joining you.