Bridges Steering Committees in 26 Communities

Bridges Steering Committees in 26 Communities – a List

The first community to develop a Bridges Steering Committee was Springfield, Ohio. The actions that group took to address predatory practices in Clark County, Ohio, sparked the imagination of other groups that wanted to organize themselves to use Bridges concepts to address poverty in new ways and increase community engagement.

Bridges Steering Committees began cropping up across the nation. Now there are 26 locations in 12 states, as well as in Canada and Slovakia. The list can be found at this location. As communities develop Bridges Steering Committees – an indication that the community is taking a comprehensive approach to addressing poverty – they will be added to this list. There are 23 sites (in nine additional states and Australia) that are emerging into that status.

We’ve found that Bridges communities love to learn from each other. In November 2006 there was a gathering in Columbus, Ohio, of eight communities and four organizations. In 2008 aha! Process hosted the second Bridges Institute, at which there were 58 people from 34 organizations. During October 7, 8, and 9, 2009, aha! Process and Move the Mountain will hold a Bridges and Circles National Community Building Conference in Cincinnati.

With every community that joins the Bridges work, we learn more about how to prevent, alleviate, and eliminate poverty. The Bridges communities on this list are learning centers for the rest of us. Thanks to them for their willingness to share their experiences and knowledge.

Philip DeVol2020-06-26T16:40:51-05:00August 14th, 2009|Community|

About the Author: Philip DeVol

Phil DeVol is an international consultant who has been working with aha! Process since 1997. He used aha! Process concepts to make institutional changes at the addiction treatment center where he was the executive director for 19 years. During this time he also co-wrote Bridges Out of Poverty with Ruby Payne and Terie Dreussi-Smith. His book Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-by-World is being used to engage people in poverty in the work of building communities where everyone can live well. It worked so well that DeVol used it as a basis for a prison reentry model called Getting Ahead while Getting Out. He works with community leaders to help them move quickly from an attraction to application of Bridges concepts. Getting Ahead and Bridges are being used in hundreds of communities in the U.S., as well as a number of sites in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. His books have been translated into Spanish, Slovak, and Czech.