Shared Space: The Communities Agenda seeks to capture the essence of the profound changes taking place in communities across the country and around the world. Community interventions to promote economic and social well-being are not new. What is new is the way in which communities are organizing themselves both strategically and comprehensively to achieve their goals.

The communities agenda consists of three key parts: their vision and associated goals, the methods they employ to attain these objectives and the actions they take to create a supportive context for their work.

Despite their differences, communities throughout the country are linked by a common agenda. They seek to promote resilience by building their capacity and strengths. Resilience is a function of interventions carried out in four independent but related clusters of activity - around sustenance, adaptation, engagement and opportunity.

Strategic methodology involves joining up local efforts through collaborative relationships within and between resilience clusters. Many communities are also partnering with governments in an effort to change policies that affect economic and social well-being.

Finally, communities are working with employers, funders and all orders of government to create an enabling environment that is more supportive of complex and comprehensive local efforts.

This book includes many illustrations of exemplary practice from communities from across the country. Taken together, these examples speak to the possible and to the hope for a better future - which itself comprises the core of resilience.