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The Connection is excited to be launching a new initiative this year (2025) that will build a “roadmap” for our community on social connectedness. We are working to develop a set of recommendations of actionable strategies that foster social connectedness and belonging across the tri-county region of Calumet, Outagamie, and Winnebago counties.
Project Summary
We are bringing together a diverse group of community leaders to guide this work, including those who work with communities disproportionately affected by disconnection and isolation (i.e. folks from LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, immigrants, older persons, people with disabilities, among others). We know that social connectedness looks different for different communities. This initiative will work to identify and recommend a range of best-practice and promising strategies – a play book of “what works” – for our many communities in Northeastern Wisconsin. The culmination of this work will be a detailed report, outlining recommended actions to improve social connectedness at individual, community, and systemic levels. The report will be shared widely with local nonprofits, health systems, schools, funders, and other stakeholders, providing a guide for future projects and sustaining/expanding existing efforts. We plan to hold a dissemination event in early 2026 to present the findings and mobilize local leaders to act on the recommendations.
Advisory Group
We have assembled a diverse advisory group of community representatives who will serve as thought leaders to:
- Review and map social connectedness projects, programs, and initiatives currently taking place in our community and explore what’s working, where efforts can be aligned, and how we can build on successes.
- Examine data trends in our community and gain a better understanding of the drivers – risk and protective factors – that affect social connectedness, and use that knowledge to inform recommendations.
- Explore and vet potential new strategies that would be a good fit for the various populations in our community.
- Help inform and plan community listening sessions. We plan to convene listening sessions across the tri-county region to hear directly from diverse and disproportionately-impacted community members about what social connection and belonging mean to them.
Why is The Connection leading this work?
Now more than ever, our community – and Wisconsin and beyond – is acutely aware of the importance of social connectedness and that social isolation and loneliness is a widespread, urgent public health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the profound effects of social isolation on mental, emotional, and physical health, stressing the need for strong social support systems. Wisconsin’s Division of Public Health includes social connectedness among the state’s top health priorities, citing that we must prioritize upstream efforts to create community conditions that improve health.
In Northeastern Wisconsin, meanwhile, local city and county public health leaders, as well as local hospitals – have identified social connectedness as a key driving factor for physical health, mental health and wellbeing, through their Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Planning processes. As an established and trusted community leader in systems change, The Connection is in an ideal position to bring our community together to build a strategy guide for belonging – built by the people for the people that is grounded in ‘what is true’ for the people of Northeast Wisconsin.
Mission & Guiding Principles
Our Mission:
Engage diverse partners in reimagining how we can combat the root causes and the adverse consequences of social isolation and loneliness among residents living in Calumet, Outagamie and Winnebago counties.
What will we create:
A community report featuring a comprehensive set of recommendations that foster social connectedness and belonging across the tri-county region of Calumet, Outagamie and Winnebago counties.
We believe that:
Community members and leaders are the experts of their own communities and can determine the best courses of action to suit their unique contexts.
We aim to:
Embed an equity perspective in our approach by focusing on the following central questions:
- Who has not been in the conversation?
- Who is most at risk?
- What are the root causes that have contributed to our current condition of social connection?
Acknowledge that this is a community challenge, not an individual failing
Our Community Agreement
Here is a working draft of the Advisory Group’s values and norms, as created by the group members. The Advisory Group will review these at each meeting, with an opportunity to make adds and/or edits.
- We desire for everyone to be heard from a place of openness.
- We will be accountable – if we make a mistake, we will correct it with intent and action to do better. (We can use “oops” and “ouch” to make others aware when a mistake has been made.)
- “Make Space, Take Space.” Be aware.
(Make space” means stepping back to allow others – especially those who might be quieter or less likely to speak up – a chance to contribute or be heard. “Take space” means encouraging those who typically hold back to step forward, speak up, and claim their rightful voice in the conversation.)
- Challenge ideas, not people. (We will keep the focus on the ideas themselves rather than making things personal. We will foster respectful, constructive dialogue.)
- Offer grace and assume positive intent. (Sometimes we make mistakes with no intent to do harm. Belief in that we try our best and are not deliberately trying to offend or harm.)
- We can all from one another
- Avoid generalizations but honor perspectives. (One person’s experience is real and valid, but it doesn’t necessarily speak for everyone.)
- Recognize that there are geographic differences. (We live in a geographically diverse area, and there can be big differences in communities only miles apart, for example.)
- Progress moves at the speed of trust. (Meaningful change and collaboration can only happen as quickly as the relationships and trust between people allow.)
- When we meet, we recognize we are only getting a small glimpse of one another.
- Stay curious and be aware that someone’s perspective or experience is true to them.
- What’s said here stay here; what’s learned here leaves here. (Personal stories and disclosures shared in our meetings should remain confidential, while the insights, lessons, and growth gained from the conversation can be shared and applied elsewhere.)
- Be present when we are together
- Be aware of our biases
- Be willing to be uncomfortable – that allows us to do the brave work!
Participating organizations include:
ADRC (Aging & Disability Resource Center) of Calumet County
Appleton Pentecostal Assembly
Appleton Health Department
Chilton Public Library
Diverse & Resilient – Appleton
ESTHER
First Five Fox Valley
Fox Valley Literacy Coalition
Heads Up
LEAVEN Fox Cities
Long Chen Senior Center
Menasha Joint School District
Multicultural Coalition
NAMI Fox Valley
NEW Hmong Professionals
Oshkosh Community YMCA
Oshkosh Pride
People of Progression
Pillars
Pointters Community Initiatives
Rainbow Alliance Advocacy
Thompson Center on Lourdes
UW-Extension (Outagamie & Winnebago counties)
Valley Transit
VPI Community Outreach Center
Winnebago County Health Department
