Creating and Mobilizing Action Teams

What are action teams?

Action teams are specialized groups within the broader coalition, each dedicated to advancing a specific priority identified through community discussions and coalition meetings. Unlike standing committees, which may oversee broader strategic planning or long-term initiatives, action teams are typically more focused, nimble, and task-oriented. They bring together volunteers with relevant expertise or passion for a particular issue, allowing the coalition to address multiple priorities simultaneously. By distributing efforts across different action teams, the coalition can mobilize resources efficiently, drive targeted impact, and sustain momentum on key initiatives.

Identify and prioritize key topics

We created action teams around four focus areas, based on the outcomes from an Action Team Summit. This summit served as an open forum, bringing together about 50 stakeholders, including coalition members, community organizations, and other partners. Led by a facilitator with the support of four to six volunteer co-facilitators, the summit provided a space for collaborative discussions to identify key priority issues and explore feasible solutions. This broad engagement expanded the coalition’s reach, introducing new perspectives and resources. The structured activities helped clarify which ideas were

1. most important,
2. had the most interest, and
3. were supported by stakeholders with a clear and present willingness to take action.

The original “opportunity areas” we identified were:

• Central hub: Establish a one-stop shop where community members can seek support, while also serving as a collaborative space to foster inner-community connections.
  
• Education and empowerment: Improve access to food resource information and locations.
• Inclusivity and dignity: Foster a system and environment that eliminates barriers such as guilt, shame, and fear, ensuring all individuals feel respected and supported when accessing food resources.
  
• Choice and autonomy: Resources that can be personalized depending on individual and cultural affirming, dietary concerns and restrictions, and changing situations.
  
• Vibrant community: Come together to support our neighbors and create a food system that leads to improvements in all aspects of health.
  
  Read more about: Social Determinants of Health – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Key resources

Picking the team

When forming action teams, it’s key to gather a diverse group of participants who bring various perspectives, skills, and experiences to the table. We focused on sector representation to ensure broad community input. With turnover, we worked to maintain that representation. We leveraged the action team summit as an opportunity to have community members sign up for the action team of their choice by adding their name to a list.

 We recommend being intentional about participants and volunteer outreach, focusing on those who are strategic for the project and most likely to stay engaged. While having a broad initial list can be helpful, a targeted approach ensures the right people are involved as plans take shape and schedules fill up throughout the year.

Action teams vs. Coalitions

Think of your action teams as the “boots on the ground” getting the work done each day. Rather than just identifying issues and gathering information like committees tend to do, action teams will be devising strategies and tactics to improve your community and most importantly, acting on them.

Our Teams: Action teams were led by a volunteer in partnership with a core team member until the group was up and running. All members were volunteers. 

How did we implement action teams?

How did we do it? Following the action team summit, the coalition reviewed the list of action teams brought forward by the community and selected a subset of four focus areas to get started on. These were:

SNAP Advocacy and Engagement
Dedicated to increasing awareness of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Mower County. The team focused its efforts on educating community members about the application process, available benefits, and addressing common misconceptions. As the most effective resource for overcoming food insecurity, SNAP is at the center of their outreach. Through a combination of in-person and virtual workshops, as well as educational videos, they aim to make SNAP more accessible and understandable for those in need.

• Idea: Include county health and human services representatives on your team, as they may have the best understanding of the enrollment process, program rules and access to awareness resources. It also will help avoid duplicating efforts.
• Idea: We created a “train the trainer” style workshop, where frontline advocates from across the county were brought in to help increase SNAP participation. They were taught about the importance of SNAP, the signup process, the importance of retention and how they and their organization could actively help people get signed up.

Volunteer Mobilization
The role of volunteers is crucial to making coalition activities happen, and the volunteer mobilization team focused on building a network of volunteers in our community. This action team reviewed all upcoming volunteer opportunities and designed strategies to ensure we were reaching everyone who wanted to help.

• Idea: Include representatives from local organizations like the United Way, Salvation Army, healthcare networks and major employers to leverage existing networks and spread the word about volunteer opportunities.

Community Hub
After identifying the need for a centralized physical space, we realized the timing wasn’t right to focus on it. While the idea had momentum, the lead group wasn’t yet in a position to take action. We decided to have a few people participate in longer-lead developments and redirect our attention to other action teams until more progress could be made. 

Tip: Don’t get discouraged if an action team doesn’t work out as expected. Use this as part of your learning strategy going forward — try something, evaluate it, iterate, then move on. 

Launching the Mobile Food Pantry

One of the action teams formed by the HFSP coalition focused on creating a mobile food pantry that would bring food to a particular area within Mower County with less access to food resources.

Action Team: Mobile Food Pantry 

This action team worked to extend the reach of existing food pantries to additional locations in the county. By bringing pantry supplies closer to areas of need, the team worked to make it easier for families and seniors to access supplies. The effort was run by volunteers. 

• After the first year, the team established a bi-weekly schedule, allowing them to automate many processes such as volunteer recruitment, tracking forms and marketing materials by location. 
• We learned it was easier to schedule volunteers in advance once we had a fixed twice-monthly schedule. Also, we noticed that having mobile pantry events in the afternoon were the hardest for volunteers, many of whom also work during the day.
• We learned that bringing the supplies to the location could be done with volunteer vehicles, without need of an expensive box truck.
• A key lesson has been the importance of building a network of local food providers to ensure a constant and varied supply of food items.
• The team piloted a joint event with a mobile health clinic called Wellness on Wheels to provide resources and free health screenings during the mobile pantry events, adding another layer of support for community members.
• Insight: Providing recipe cards and other tips to help community members make the most of pantry items has been well received.
• Insight: Promoted the events via social media, using targeted audiences focusing on neighborhoods in close proximity to the event location. Also posted flyers on nearby community bulletin boards. Both tactics drew attention.