Effective Facilitation Benefits Individuals and the Community at Large

ATLANTA, Nov. 14, 2003 – Four southeastern organizations – including the United Way of Metro Atlanta, Mississippi State University, a regional branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Atlanta-based Families First – received the 2003 Facilitation Impact Awards, given by the Southeast Association of Facilitators (SEAF). These awards recognize excellence in achieving organization or community impact through applying group facilitation practices.

The Mayor’s Homelessness Task Force, created by the United Way of Metro Atlanta at the request of Mayor Shirley Franklin, earned the “Gold Award,” the highest recognition offered by SEAF. With help from independent facilitators at Leadership Strategies, Inc., the task force built and delivered a comprehensive action plan, “The Blueprint to End Homelessness in Atlanta,” which brought the topic to the consciousness of the city’s political and business leaders.

“Skilled facilitation is a critical resource to our United Way’s efforts to mobilize the community to create sustainable changes in community conditions, such as homelessness,” said Chris Allers, Senior Vice President, Community Impact, of United Way of Metro Atlanta. “Our effort to assist Mayor Franklin required the synthesis of ideas and opinions of more than 140 community stakeholders. This synthesis was made possible by having strong facilitators to guide and support the community dialogue.”

Other winners include the social service agency Families First, which used group facilitation to define and implement the technology portion of its strategic planning process; Mississippi State University, for its use of a facilitator to receive feedback from other state educational institutions and work toward solving problem-based learning; and the Ecosystems Research Division of the EPA, which launched a facilitator-led organizational change mechanism to become more participative.

Organizations use facilitators to design and lead meetings to develop strategic plans, improve operations, provide team building, resolve tough issues, and identify information systems requirements, among other areas. Facilitators are experts at helping teams focus on critical issues and producing commitment to solutions. While large corporations often have in-house staff to provide facilitation services, other companies and not-for-profit organizations use outside facilitators for support. By annually awarding excellence in facilitation, SEAF wants to raise the awareness of the importance of facilitation in all sectors of business and society.

About SEAF

The Southeast Association of Facilitators (www.seaf.org) exists to promote and improve group facilitation techniques. The Association meets bi-monthly to share facilitation experiences and advance the tools and techniques of the profession, expertise, and related information about methodologies, tools and techniques. SEAF is an affiliate of the International Association of Facilitators, a network of 1300 facilitators in 20 countries.

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