Building Stronger Communities Through Connection
Updated: Sep 10
By Josh Murray
Over the last 15 months, chapters across the American Red Cross Nebraska and Iowa Region have placed an increased focus on strengthening relationships, building partnerships and creating connections that help communities become more resilient long before a disaster or crisis occurs.
At the heart of that effort is a simple but powerful idea.
“When disaster strikes, the difference between communities that recover well and those that struggle often comes down to one question: Do you know your neighbor?” said Tammy Lee, Executive Director of the Northwest Iowa-Northeast Nebraska Chapter of the American Red Cross. “That idea, what we call social cohesion, has become a foundation to this effort to help communities become more resilient.”
That realization prompted a shift in thinking.
“We're taking the work we do today and, by working alongside partners, finding ways to be more effective and have a greater impact for the community,” Lee said. “It's not about what we do, but how we do the work.”
The approach began with a deeper effort to understand the communities the Red Cross serves. Through a chapter-focused process, the local Red Cross team examined who it is as an organization, what it does well and where it has opportunities to contribute more effectively.
Along the way, the team also identified a challenge common to many organizations.
“Within our own work, and across other organizations, we sometimes operate in silos,” Lee said. “Which means we're missing opportunities to fully leverage our collective time, talent and resources to address the broader drivers of community resilience.”
A key part of overcoming those silos involved a simple idea: showing up. Red Cross representatives began participating in community conversations simply to listen, learn and understand local needs.
“We wanted to gain a better understanding of the community and how we could be more effective,” Lee said.
That mindset led to a partnership with Growing Community Connections (GCC), an organization dedicated to bringing community partners together to strengthen support systems for families and communities.
“Growing Community Connections is all about partners coming together to build on the wonderful things that are happening to make them even better or to find gaps and be able to cover those gaps with all of the wonderful things that are happening,” said JoAnn Gieselman, GCC director. “The idea behind Growing Community Connections is to help families thrive.”
As Lee and Gieselman talked, they saw an opportunity to bring a broader group of community leaders together.
“Tammy talked to me about social cohesion and community resilience,” Gieselman said. “I talked to others about it and we decided to bring people together to ask questions and explore answers together, and it has just taken off.”
Earlier this year, about 200 people from organizations from across Siouxland came together to talk about social cohesion.
The conversations revealed an important truth: community resilience looks different depending on who is asked. Some organizations focus on youth development, while others prioritize health care, housing, education or economic opportunity. Despite their different missions, all shared a common goal of helping communities thrive.
“Being in that room was incredibly beneficial because everyone was looking at community resilience through a different lens,” Lee said. “It broadened the conversation and helped us see opportunities we might not have recognized otherwise.”
The gathering also produced an outcome that was both simple and powerful.
“The key was really getting to know each other,” Gieselman said.
That relationship-building became one of the most valuable results of the effort. Many organizations were familiar with one another but had never fully understood each other's missions, priorities and roles within the community.
“For some of these organizations, we knew them, but we didn't really know about them,” Lee said. “Now we understand each other better, and we can pick up the phone and have more meaningful conversations because these deeper relationships exist.”
As connections grew, participants began to see how stronger relationships could translate into better support for community members.
“If you know of someone who needs something, you know about a resource in the community that can help,” Gieselman said. “This is getting even bigger as we get to know each other more closely and it is continuing to grow.”
“Relationships are the work,” Lee said. “When we create space for real conversation, we find strengths, uncover gaps and unlock new ideas.”
As partnerships continue to grow, more organizations are finding opportunities to collaborate, share resources and support one another's missions.
“I hear this across our area,” Gieselman said. “There is a heart here for our community, and the organizations are not isolated. They are working together to support the community and make sure people have what they need.”
That spirit of collaboration is helping create stronger and more connected communities. The goal is for community members to know where to turn for help and understand how to connect others with support. Neighbors become active participants in helping neighbors and, over time, communities become more resilient because helping one another becomes second nature.
“When something happens, the community shows up for each other,” Lee said. “It happens naturally because of the work that's already been done to build stronger, more resilient communities.”
In the end, community resilience is not built by any one organization. It is built through relationships, trust and collaboration, one conversation, one connection and one neighbor at a time.
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