Integral Community Development & Capacity Building
Community Matters
In his most recent book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell offers a timely reminder of the importance of community and culture in shaping individuals and their experiences in the world. Where we come from matters, he says.
We agree. To cultivate healthy people we must cultivate healthy communities. But there’s more. Community is much more than the backdrop for a successful and satisfying individual life. It is the fertile soil in which we grow our world – one community at a time. For example, community supports each of us in our developmental journey from selfcentric seedling to worldcentric citizen. It’s in local community that we develop our capacities not only for local citizenship, but for global citizenship. And it’s in community that we develop a sense of both responsibility and response-ability, or the capacity to positively respond to a problem or an opportunity – in our own backyard, or on the other side of the world.
In this way, our local commitment to community-building has far-reaching consequences. And, given the complex challenges that are emerging both locally and globally, we are convinced that community development has never been more important than it is today. The goal? Healthy people. Healthy communities. And a healthy world.
Taking an Integral Approach
An integral approach to community development and capacity building is “comprehensive, balanced, inclusive … not leaving anything out.” With an Integral Map of Community (see below) to guide our planning and our practice, we build assets in every dimension of our experience: inner and outer, individual and collective. This means paying as much attention to inner health and well-being as to actions, behaviours and skills. And it means paying attention to cultural realities in addition to social, economic and environmental systems. Similarly, Integral Capacity Building addresses the whole person in the whole community. Putting the Integral Capacity Building Framework (see below) into action, we address human potential, not just our pressing problems.
Taking an integral approach, our capacity building efforts reflect the complexity of people, and the communities in which we live our lives. Benefits of an integral approach to community development and capacity building include:
• More information, more effective tools
• See multiple perspectives
• Navigate complexity, acknowledging interconnected influences
• Identify knowledge and action gaps
• Identify patterns and potholes
• Enhance communication and learning across sectors
• Identify levers for effective change 
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