What is a community of practice?
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a concern and learn how to address it through regular interaction.
Communities of Practice (CoPs) equip passionate individuals with collective goals in order to effectively bring changes and solutions to common or intersecting issues.
Through a supportive network, communities of practice enable groups of people to adapt, build relationships, and expand their fields of knowledge on related issues. Tools and shared information generated through communities of practice can provide members with the essential elements they need for collective growth and problem solving.
Learn MoreResource Corner
Systems Change:
Systems Change: Why it Matters (and Isn’t Just a Buzzword)
John Kania and Cynthia Rayner
Outlines the six conditions of systems change which emphasizes switching away from individual efforts and focusing on bringing together several different types of organizations for a more collective effort.
Communities of Practice:
Community of Practice Facilitation Guide
University of Michigan Center for Positive Organizations
Introduces the concept of a Community of Practice, guiding principles, sustaining strategies, and content ideas.
Community Engagement:
Convening Design 2022
The Rockefeller Foundation
Outlines developed and tested approaches to convening design and production for both in person and online convenings.
What is Meaningful Community Engagement? Learnings from the Perspective of a National Advocacy Organization
Jess Fairbanks, Amira Iwuala, Parker Gilkesson Davis, Kathy Tran
Describes best practices for community engagement and how to create better sessions to reach people with lived experience in poverty.
Community Engagement Toolkit: Essentials for Planning & Facilitating Meaningful Conversations
National Aging and Disability Transportation Center
Compilation of tools to help organize and facilitate community meetings to identify areas of need and ways to address those needs.
Equitable Community Engagement Toolkit
The City of Philadelphia
Illustrates how to engage linguistically diverse communities and how to provide language access accommodations.
Case Study: 2025 Efficient Housing for All Community of Practice
Energy efficiency through home weatherization presents an opportunity to address these health disparities and decrease energy burden for families. In 2023, researchers projected several energy efficiency and conservation scenarios, demonstrating the long-term impacts of household energy use on health and climate outcomes. In an effort to ensure that Rhode Island achieves the optimal health and climate scenario, the Efficient EHACoP engaged two key groups – 1. community-based workers at the intersection of environmental and human health; and 2. Rhode Island residents with a high energy burden. The EHACoP provided information about energy efficiency and how it relates to health outcomes to participants, and worked through scenarios to collect feedback that generated community-informed takeaways and recommendations for energy efficiency program improvements in Rhode Island. Participants were incentivized to participate, earning gift cards and a Certificate of Participation for attending three or more of the six sessions.
Key Takeaways
- The Efficient Housing for All Community of Practice highlighted the importance of a systems change approach. Increased participation requires a combination of both structural and relational changes in the energy efficiency policy and engagement landscape. See below the systems change model applied to energy efficiency efforts in Rhode Island.
- Community-based workers are the key to comprehensive, transformational change around issues that impact social determinants of health if they are empowered to incorporate energy efficiency as a tool for improving conditions in the home
