Signature Models

The CBI Change Model

This model depicts the process by which change is affected in a community and is the basis for CBI’s work. The model shows that change begins with the individual. Individuals, in turn, begin to affect their surrounding networks in their organizations, places of work, study and prayer, neighborhoods and networks of friends and family. As this influence grows, organizations and institutions are affected, finally resulting in community-wide change.

The Change Model was developed by CBI volunteers during Phase II.

The Change Model is depicted graphically in the CBI logo. See "About Our Logo."

The Issue Action Team Model

This model was developed during the beginning phases of CBI’s work in the Charlotte community, and springs from a large-scale public event entitled "Something Has Begun." It is most useful at the beginning of a large community-based process in order to identify and prioritize key issues.

The model allows for sharing of information, discussion and written output from one group specifically charged to examine a specific component of an issue out to a larger group studying the issue in a wholistic manner.

Six Issue Action Team reports were written by CBI participants in 1999.

The model is designed to:

• carefully study and articulate the facts and forces around one focused issue in racial and ethnic equity in the context of a larger discussion;

• maximize involvement from a variety of diverse stakeholders;

• produce specific, actionable recommendations

The Resource Team Model

The Resource Team model is best applied within institutions and organizations seeking to explore a focused set of questions around an issue of racial and ethnic inclusion and equity. The model allows for a wide spectrum of viewpoints but also seeks to balance input from experts with specific sets of knowledge within the group in order to craft actionable outcomes. The model is overseen by an Accountability Team, charged with oversight and management of the overall process, and augmented by professional researchers, providing data to the Resource Team as needed.

In a powerful example of the use of the Resource Team model in CBI’s work, a Resource Team was developed while working with the 26th Judicial District in North Carolina(PDF-8mb). The District engaged CBI to assist it in examining possible disparate treatment based on race in judicial outcomes and in the system as a whole.  (See diagram at right.)

The Leadership Development Model

CBI believes that community leaders can serve as resources to their own organizations, and to the larger community, by participating in intentional, on-going work in the form of the Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) and quarterly Leaders’ Lunches.

While no graphic representation of this model has been developed, the concept of leaders serving as resources is key to CBI’s long-term strategy for community change, and fits within its Change Model.