BUILDING COALITIONS FOR EDUCATING
AND PROBLEM SOLVING:
PROCESS, ROLES, WARNINGS AND STYLES
FOR EXTENSION INVOLVEMENT
Fielding Cooley, Andy Duncan and Judy Burridge
Oregon State University
Some educators pay close attention to planning the coalition-build-
ing process; others eschew process planning and operate by the seat
of their pants. In either case educators can profit from using a vari-
ety of styles when participating in learning and problem solving
coalitions. Fielding Cooley’s section of this presentation outlines a
coalition-building process and corresponding roles. Andy Duncan
deals with some issues of practical application in the field and, final-
ly, Judy Burridge relates roles and practice to issue education styles.
THE COALITION-BUILDING PROCESS
Fielding Cooley
In building coalitions, it is helpful to know the events likely to
occur or those that might be needed to increase the chances of suc-
cess. The goal here is to describe coalition building as a flexible, iter-
ative process rather than a linear sequence of events.
According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, a coalition is an al-
liance of factions for a specific purpose. There are different kinds of
coalitions; some are made up of members who agree to band to-
gether to gain advantages over others, i.e., political parties, lobbying
associations, nations and businesses. I am concerned, rather, with
coalitions made up of members who have little or no initial agree-
ment on values, goals or strategies. They usually form around the
need to solve community or regional problems through consensus
and group learning. An example is the Oregon Watershed Improve-
ment Coalition (OWIC). Sometimes, as in the case of OWIC, they just
seem to happen with limited strategic planning. In other cases, such
as the Lane County (Oregon) Child Abuse Forum in which I acted as
a process consultant and facilitator, leaders and organizers attempt
to map out a coalition-building process.
The process can have nine stages that do not always occur in the
same order. Experience indicates some of the stages may even occur
simultaneously. Putting the stages into three phases helps us conceptu-
alize the iterative cyclical nature of the coalition-building process.
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