Community-Based Projects

We use asset-based community development (ABCD), community-based participatory research (CBPR), participatory mapping, and freedom dreaming to explore the “assets,” support systems, coping strategies, and hopes and dreams of our community members.

Sueños de Sonoma (2021)

  • The methodology of the Sueños study relied on “freedom dreaming” conversations with 88 individuals from Sonoma Valley. The shared dream of the participants is an accessible hub where multiracial, multilingual and multigenerational communities gather comfortably and creatively to express themselves, share stories, and cultivate authentic relationships and healthy traditions. The hub centralizes resources such as mental health services, rental assistance, housing navigation, case management and legal services. The hub houses a variety of practitioners, clinicians and client navigators who offer assistance, support and referrals. In addition to adult-focused services, the hub also has drop-in child care, a youth/teen center, an institute for career advancement and leadership development, and an organizing program to build community momentum and power. The hub maintains close relationships with other organizations and agencies in the community to create a continuum of services in conjunction and collaboration with existing support.

Art, Emergence, and Radical Love (2022)

  • In May 2022, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program commissioned Kimzin Creative (KC) and On the Margins (OTM) to facilitate a community-led and asset-based process with Sonoma County artists to understand their lived experiences, creative visions, hopes, and dreams. The aim of this project was to encourage Sonoma County artists to dream about what the arts can be, and how the Hewlett Foundation’s partnership and resources can help to seed those ideas. To accomplish this aim, the facilitators relied on emergence as a theoretical and practical framework grounded in the voices and lived experiences of Sonoma County artists. In this report, we begin by outlining the methodology of our project, which describes the emergence process used by KC and OTM. We then present findings from the data collected to illuminate key concerns facing artists in Sonoma County as well as their strengths and dreams. The findings also provide information about: (a) the conditions that best enable contributing artists to exercise cultural self determination, and (b) what Sonoma County artists want and desire for their communities. We conclude with the recommendations of eight contributing artists for how $500,000 in funds and resources from the Hewlett Foundation are deployed in service of the arts in Sonoma County.

Nuestra Comunidad Sana (2023)

  • In 2022, the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County commissioned On the Margins to conduct Nuestra Comunidad Sana | Our Healthy Community. Nuestra Comunidad Sana is a community-based project organized by four non-profit organizations: the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County, Nuestra Comunidad, La Familia Sana, and Alexander Valley Healthcare.

    These four organizations, hereinafter referred to as “The Collective,” sought to answer the following question— Where and when do intergenerational families gather to experience joy and a sense of belonging in Cloverdale? On the Margins was asked to collaborate with The Collective given its experience using asset-based community development (ABCD), community-based participatory research (CBPR), participatory mapping, and freedom dreaming as a practice. These approaches were used by On the Margins to find answers to The Collective’s question.

    The objective of Nuestra Comunidad Sana is to use a grassroots approach led by Cloverdale community members, with particular attention to historically underserved and marginalized communities, to envision a safe, vibrant, green, community space of belonging for all residents of Cloverdale. Nuestra Comunidad Sana encourages engagement and full participation of community partners in every aspect of the research process, from question identification to analysis and findings dissemination. To accomplish its objective, The Collective explored the assets, support systems, coping strategies, and hopes and dreams of Cloverdale community members.

    This report describes participants’ desired vision of a safe, vibrant, and green community space of belonging in Cloverdale. Future directions for The Collective include project activation, construction, advocacy, fundraising, and implementation of community input and feedback. This project is important because a community space of belonging, designed by and for the people, can improve physical and mental health outcomes, life expectancy and nurture an inclusive, safe community of belonging for all Cloverdalians. Next, we discuss the demographic composition in Cloverdale to highlight the existing inequities and disparities that exist in the region.