Modeling Community Resources and Communications Mapping for Strategic Inter-organizational Problem Solving and Civic Engagement

The goal of the project outlined in this paper is to create a conceptual foundation and methodological guide of community resources and communications mapping for collective problem solving and civic engagement on behalf of civil society. The purpose is twofold: (1) to help civil society effectively identify the most appropriate stakeholders for collective problem-solving networks, and (2) to help civil society strategically participate in politics by building public discourse advocacy networks. To this end, the literature on collaboration, focused on public-private-civic partnerships, and on relationship-based and politics-based collaboration theories is reviewed. Then, after reviewing stakeholder mapping and network analysis for collaboration, we suggest integrating tripartite network analysis of community resources and communications mapping projects to serve the study’s dual purposes