Raport CCWBE

In April, we continued revising the Early Warning Manual based on feedback from the Advisory Committee and have successfully entered the early stages of planning for offering training sessions. We held two successful full group Advisory Committee meetings via Zoom, including one rescheduled from March. During the first meeting, we received valuable input on the edits on the Executive Summary and Chapter 1. We also engaged in a whole group discussion on training preparation. The Advisory Committee agreed that the training program should be up to 24 hours and that it would combine face-to-face and online components. Everyone was tasked with providing feedback on Chapters 2 and 3 asynchronously via email and in our collaborative online document. In the second convening, which was held at the end of April, attendees discussed potential revisions to Chapter 4 (the final chapter), and we discussed potential training objectives and session topics. In both meetings, opportunities for additional manual revisions were identified, including gathering more content for the multimedia presentations. Another great step in progress is that we have now selected an online learning platform to host the training content. One of our goals is to also create training candidate profiles that will help us with creating an outreach plan and another is to implement training sessions for participants. We are working toward these goals and the team recognized that we would need more time to work on the content and build out the training site. Thus, in April, the Manufacturing Renaissance project team met to discuss a revised timeline and plans for training. The team decided that we would create two trainings modules: an executive overview module focused on organizational leaders and business owners, and a full training module for organizational staff. The executive overview module can be edited to create a very brief presentation that can be used for important external audiences like elected officials, funders, media, etc. We also decided to postpone offering training until early fall 2024. This adjustment provides us with time to fully execute the additional manual revisions suggested by the Advisory Committee and further prepare for hosting a training and conducting more outreach. Our new deadline for completing the Early Warning Manual revisions will be the first week of August 2024. Another goal of our project is to review key indicators and case studies of early warning system work in Chicago and best practices nationally. With the adjusted timeline, we will also be able to dedicate time to developing case studies. In some cases, this requires reviewing what already exists in the original manual, but there are also opportunities to create new and more recent case studies that feature individuals and businesses from the Chicagoland area that have been a part of the early warning system.

We continue to have limited availability constraints with the Advisory Committee members with some members being unable to attend the full group meetings due to scheduling conflicts. We are currently using Doodle polls to help set times, but it can still be challenging.

Pauline took advantage of the opportunity to participate in a Generative AI for Small Business Owners offered by the Center for Changing Lives (CCL). She attended the workshop in person and met CCL team members who are also involved with CWB. She found the workshop to be informative and learned about AI tools that can also potentially be used for developing the Early Warning Manual and conducting research.

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As mentioned above, Pauline connected with CCL.

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Instytut Rewolucji

Sequane Lawrence of Revolution Institute continues to serve on our general Advisory Committee for the Early Warning Systems Building Project. Pauline conducted an informative one-on-one interview with Sequane in April 2024. The interview focused on his experience as a community development practitioner, community wealth building, and the potential benefits of having an early warning network in place. The interview was transcribed and will be analyzed with the intent to pull out content that can be added to the Early Warning Manual, potentially as a case study.

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