Monument Community Partnership

The Monument Community Partnership (MCP) is a broad-based collaborative of residents, human service agencies, health service agencies, the school district, city government and local business owners. It is designed to improve the well-being of people who live in the Monument Community, a severely under-resourced neighborhood in the heart of Concord, California.

A key premise of the MCP is this: That taking intelligent and effective action to reduce poverty and improve the well-being of a community starts with building personal relationships that allow people from different backgrounds and disciplines to work effectively together toward common goals. Functional social networks and experience-based trust are preconditions for any community to work well. Therefore, the MCP, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, works to involve residents of all ages, ethnicity and immigration status as equal partners with local public and private organizations in productive, action-based collaboration. This is no easy task. The fact that we have painstakingly created a functional, productive way for people from divergent groups to work together is in itself a major achievement and serves as the foundation for everything else we do.

MCP’s Neighborhood Action Teams [NATs] of resident leaders are at the core of our success. Created by TEAMS: Transformation through Education and Mutual Support, this team-based resident leadership development model starts with building the capacity of residents themselves to become versatile problem-solvers in any area that is important to them. By integrating the priorities and actions of residents with those of resource and service providers, MCP has already improved systems and made some important neighborhood improvements.