Community Creators Project
King County Library System, Wash.
Innovation Synopsis
An all-ages invitation to individuals, groups and businesses in Enumclaw to participate in the 2019 Community Creators Contest for a chance to see their ideas for connection-focused programs brought to life. Local librarians are partnering with winners to sponsor and develop their programs, which will be offered to the community for FREE.
Challenge/Opportunity
We aim to strengthen the library’s position as a key resource among the especially strong local support networks in the Enumclaw community. The contest and resulting programs directly reflect the diversity of our community, offer residents a closer sense of ownership in the library via more visible influence on our services and provide a closer look at the resources available to our community. Additionally, the contest creates an opportunity for librarians to identify unmet community needs.
Key Elements of Innovation
The Community Creators Project is designed to solicit and showcase community voices through close, responsive and transparent collaboration. This is a radically inclusive community-led project in that we invite participants to keep ownership of their ideas by engaging in hands-on work to positively impact their community. Librarians partner with Community Creators to guide them through the design, development and implementation of their visions.
Achieved Outcomes
We achieved our contest goals of offering space for the community to visibly influence our services, communicating our value for local diversity and discovering unidentified needs. We expect to continue strengthening our value to the community via our partnerships with our winners as we work on their projects for the Escuela de la Vida series for cultural connection and health services, and Community Connections to showcase a series of exploratory topics that can bring adults together.
