KLCC Evaluators Begin Collaborating on Upcoming Book

By: Cheryl D. Fields
Publication: KLCC Bridge
Published: 03/15/07

Led by the KLCC National Evaluation Team, a group of roughly 25 KLCC evaluators, project leads and others from Sessions 1 and 2 met in Michigan in February to begin outlining an upcoming book about collective leadership and community change.

Scheduled for publication sometime in 2008, the book will feature teams of writers from several of the Session 1 and 2 sites, each of which will contribute chapters. Project evaluation consultant Maenette Benham will serve as the book’s lead editor. Benham and her KLCC evaluation colleagues Crystal Elissetche, Patrick Halladay, Matthew Militello, John Oliver and Anna Ortiz led last month’s generative writing session, which was designed to focus the writers’ thoughts about the topics to which they’ve been assigned, while also giving them an opportunity to exchange ideas with the other writers and contemplate their own contributions through a more holistic lens.

I admit, I wasn’t exactly sure about this [generative writing] process,” says Teresa Behrens, director of evaluation for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “Doing a writing project with this many people seemed very ambitious, to put it mildly. But I trust Maenette, and after participating in this process I am very impressed and look forward to contributing to the book
coming together over the next several months.”

In addition to chapters about the KLCC Framework and the processes of collective leadership development, crossing boundaries, participatory evaluation, social advocacy, community-based organizational development and youth-adult partnerships, the book will feature real life anecdotes of how these theories and practices are playing out and bringing about change in KLCC communities around the country.

“I’m inspired by what we’ve shared during the generative writing session,” Benham says. Having used the generative writing process before on other book projects, she feels strongly that it is an especially good fit for the collective leadership book. “This process embraces many of the same principles that KLCC and the book are about. Each writer will bring a unique insight and wisdom to the work, but, because nothing will be written in a vacuum, when the pieces come together they should make for a really strong and informative whole.”

Updates about the book will be featured in future editions of the KLCC Bridge.