Generating Community Change 343Self-help approach
The self-help approach can be implemented in many ways. One of the most com-
mon set of steps of implementation, stressed by such existing community develop-
ment entities as cooperative extension services, is the social action process. The
approach involves a number of steps – visioning, determining desired future condi-
tions and long-term goals, using broad-based participation, determining the assets
in the community, analysing alternative ways of using those assets to move toward
the collective vision, choosing specific projects that move the community toward
the desired future, generating community-wide commitment, planning the imple-
mentation phase, actually implementing the plan and finally evaluating. This
process focuses on social capital and generally does not address political and cul-
tural capitals. Thus, this approach often places heavy reliance on agenda setting by
the existing power structure: the power structure has veto power over any proposal
brought to it by the initiators.
Recognizing the cozy relationship with traditional community leaders, which
this approach represents, and seeing the need for more rapid change as resource-
based communities experience serious problems of out-migration, unemployment
and decline of services, cooperative extension approaches have been modified so as
to incorporate broad community participation in the problem-identification phase
rather than waiting until the ‘organizing to sell’ phase. Strategic planning method-
ologies, futuring exercises, whereby a representative group from a community is
asked to establish priorities based on a strategic plan and the community’s mission,
and ‘empowerment’ approaches all involve either a careful selection of representa-
tives from a broad spectrum of organizations and occupations or an open town
meeting approach to problem selection.
Technical assistance approach
In the pure technical assistance approach, a local entity, either a local government
or a private entity such as a chamber of commerce, calls upon an outside expert
either to develop and assess the effectiveness and efficiency of alternative solutions
to a particular problem or to design the most efficient way to perform a certain
task, that is, to implement a predetermined solution to a predetermined problem.
In the latter instance, which represents the vast majority of technical assistance
consultancies, the expert does not question the task assigned or how it was deter-
mined that the particular problem was important. The expert merely develops a
plan to implement the solution.
At times, local experts, such as planners, can deliver technical assistance. They
generally receive their orders from local or regional governmental officials and are
involved in defining how to perform a particular task efficiently. Defining what
the task should be is reserved for the politicians. Mark Lapping, Thomas Daniel
and John Keller outline the steps planners should undertake for effective economic
development. In the technical assistance approach, an individual with technical