I'm David Swain.  I've been working in communities and neighborhoods, principally 
in Jacksonville, Florida, since 1968.  Before Jacksonville, I spent a year as a 
VISTA volunteer in a ten-county area of south-central Tennessee.

Over the years I've done my community-improvement work in quite a variety of 
ways--in antipoverty agencies (Tennessee, Fall River, MA, and Jacksonville), 
Jacksonville city government (intergovernmental relations and housing and urban 
development), higher education (local AME college and state university branch), and 
now, for the last ten years, in a community-based, private nonprofit organization 
called the Jacksonville Community Council Inc.

I've always thought that a lot of community organizing was teaching people 
collective skills, that a lot of teaching was organizing people for action, and 
that both require primarily facilitation.  In addition, both of these reqiure 
gathering and understanding information (research).  Now, at JCCI, I focus a large 
segment of my efforts on facilitation of a citizen-based study process and 
a follow-up advocacy-implementation process.

I also oversee a major longitudinal project that measures Jacksonville's quality of 
life annually through 75 indicators (similar to sustaniability and benchmarking 
projects around the country; we were actually the major pioneer of these efforts; 
we started in 1985 and have done our annual updates ever since, while adding to 
the sophistication of the project each year).  The QOL project has blossomed into a 
major means in Jacksonville of assessing community needs and taking action for 
collective improvement.

Jacksonville is a conservative, Old-South town that has recently grown rapidly.  
The population is about one-quarter minority, almost entirely African American.  
While a growing number of African Americans enjoy middle class status, a large 
proportion still remain in poverty and live largely segregated lives.  There's no 
doubt that race remains the primary divisive factor here.

I'm looking forward to our discussions on community building and the role of basic 
civic values in this process.  If anyone wants further detail about me, about JCCI, 
or about Jacksonville, please ask.  I'll be glad to share more.

David

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David Swain                           Associate Director
Jacksonville Community Council Inc.
2434 Atlantic Boulevard, Suite 100
Jacksonville, FL  32207

phone 904-396-3052                      fax 904-398-1469
                   dcswain@moe.fcol.com
                   dswain@osprey.unf.edu
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