The Marketing Journal
  • About
  • Interviews
  • Articles
  • Videos
  • Book Reviews
  • Views
  • Subscribe
“The Community Value Pyramid” – Christian Sarkar, Philip Kotler, Enrico Foglia

“The Community Value Pyramid” – Christian Sarkar, Philip Kotler, Enrico Foglia

February 13, 2023

Business schools focus on teaching “business value creation.”  Nowhere do they teach community value creation.

What might that look like?

In the past, we’ve seen many approaches to community development come and go – many of them as real estate projects to bring back economic life to dying neighborhoods.  Results have often led to gentrification and displacement of the very population that was the intended beneficiary.

It’s time to change this exploitative pattern of top-down development.  Community development must begin and end with the community – real people – in the center.  The primary beneficiary of community development must be the community, not the developer.

Sounds obvious. but it’s not.

So how do we map out community needs?  Turns out we can use job-to-be-done which will be a laborious affair, or simply use the community value pyramid. Patterned after the “elements of value,” the community value pyramid is a simple tool we developed to help community members identify what the most important jobs-to-be-done in their community might look like.

Of course, each community can build their own pyramid by modifying the elements.

We recognize that our pyramid of value is a reflection of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and that this hierarchy may be misplaced. But it is a good model to begin with.

Community leaders can use the pyramid to ask themselves five questions:

  1. What do the people say we need most urgently?
  2. How do our community value propositions compare with other communities we admire?
  3. How do we bridge the gaps to create local value for our community?
  4. What essential services do we need for the common good?
  5. How will we plan, execute, maintain, and measure impact?

The community value pyramid becomes a tool to help decide which areas need regeneration the most.  Note that the foundational community values of human rights, tolerance, and justice are represented on the sides of the pyramid.  These are first principles.  And of course, the hierarchy is based on requirements for survival – but most of our daily lives cut across this hierarchy.

ASK: What are the most urgent and important jobs to be done?  These are the “unmet needs of the community.” 

Once you ask this question, you’ll want to think of the following:

  • what – the type of need: describe it as clearly as possible
  • who – is being impacted? Individual, community, work, national, planet? who decides what is to be done? for whom?
  • where – is the need observed?
  • when – does the need occur – is it continuous or sporadic?
  • who/what – should be held accountable? is blocking the solution?

Discussions work best in an environment of caring and trust. Fear must be eliminated.  The first step must be to create a safe space for open and frank exchange and deliberation – without fear of reprisal.  In most communities there is a hegemony – a power structure that upholds and protects the cultural norms of the community.

How do you create a system for collecting input: suggestions, requests, and concerns which does not penalize the least powerful?

A WARNING FROM HISTORY: Without deep democratic engagement of the local population, community development becomes a negative, exploitative, even destructive practice, not unlike the forced eviction of Native Americans from their ancestral lands.  In the past, “urban renewal” was a term often used for the various strategies to restore profitability and/or repopulate areas of the city deemed to be in decline.  Also termed ‘reconstruction’, urban renewal describes a broad range of interventions in the built environment and in communities facilitated by the state, the private sector, public-private partnerships, or less commonly, by community-level agencies. In essence, urban renewal promised physical, material, or spatial solutions to social and economic problems.   This is a reductive and destructive way of thinking of the whole ecosystem – especially in the US, where the criticism of urban renewal programs is not new. Urban renewal in the US, has not helped the poor. It was primarily a mid-20th century phenomenon that decimated the cores of America’s cities. More than two thousand urban renewal construction projects were undertaken between 1949 and 1973, when the urban renewal program officially ended. Over two million inhabitants were displaced and moved. Urban renewal provided local “agencies” with federal funds and the power of eminent domain to condemn slum neighborhoods, tear down the buildings, and resell the cleared land to private developers at a reduced price. In the end, more than 40 state legislatures in the US ended up passing laws restricting or banning the use of eminent domain for economic rejuvenation.

Christian Sarkar is the editor of this site, and is a co-founder of the Regenerative Marketing Institute with Enrico Foglia and Philip Kotler. Their book – Regeneration: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World is available for purchase now.  See also: The Regeneration Journal.

Related Posts

“Technology and the Common Good” – Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler

Branding /

“Technology and the Common Good” – Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler

“Cultural Presence: The Social Function of Milan Design Week” – Barbara Dal Corso

Community /

“Cultural Presence: The Social Function of Milan Design Week” – Barbara Dal Corso

“Wicked Problems” – An Interview with Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar

Creativity /

“Wicked Problems” – An Interview with Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar

‹ “Next Practices in Museum Experience Design” – Barbara Dal Corso › “Product Feature Prioritization —How to Align on the Right List” – Bob Pennisi
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Recent Posts

  • “Technology and the Common Good” – Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler
  • “Cultural Presence: The Social Function of Milan Design Week” – Barbara Dal Corso
  • “Wicked Problems” – An Interview with Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar
  • “Dragon proofing your legacy brand” – Grant McCracken
  • OP-ED: “Autopsy Of a Brand: Tesla” – George Tsakraklides
  • “The 5th P is Purpose” – Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler
  • “The CEO-as-Brand Era: How Leadership Ego is Fueling Tesla’s Meltdown” – Ilenia Vidili
  • “The Future of Marketing is the Quest for Good” – Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler
  • “Questions for the New Year” – John Hagel
  • “Enlightened Management – An Interview with Gabriele Carboni”
  • “If you’re not thinking segments, you’re not thinking” – Anthony Ulwick
  • “Does Marketing Need Curtailment for the Sake of Sustainability?” – Philip Kotler
  • ‘Social profit orientation’ can help companies and nonprofits alike do more good in the world by Leonard L. Berry, Lerzan Aksoy, and Tracey Danaher
  • “Understanding Hallyu: The Impact of Korean Pop Culture” by Sanya Anand and David Seyheon Baek
  • “Go-to-Market (GTM): A New Definition” – Karthi Ratnam
  • “Jobs-to-be-Done for Government” – Anthony Ulwick
  • “The Power of Superconsumers” – Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, & Katrina Kirsch
  • “Zoom Out/Zoom In – Making It Personal” – John Hagel
  • “Regeneration or Extinction?” – a discussion with Philip Kotler, Christian Sarkar, and Enrico Foglia
  • “Climate scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap” – James Dyke, Robert Watson, and Wolfgang Knorr
  • “The allure of the ad-lib: New research identifies why people prefer spontaneity in entertainment” – Jacqueline Rifkin and Katherine Du
  • “What is ‘ethical AI’ and how can companies achieve it?” by Dennis Hirsch and Piers Norris Turner
  • “How the US military used magazines to target ‘vulnerable’ groups with recruiting ads” – Jeremiah Favara
  • “Ethics and AI: Policies for Governance and Regulation” – Aryssa Yoon, Christian Sarkar, and Philip Kotler
  • “Product Feature Prioritization —How to Align on the Right List” – Bob Pennisi
  • “The Community Value Pyramid” – Christian Sarkar, Philip Kotler, Enrico Foglia
  • “Next Practices in Museum Experience Design” – Barbara Dal Corso
  • “What does ESG mean?” – Luciana Echazú and Diego C. Nocetti
  • “ChatGPT could be a game-changer for marketers, but it won’t replace humans any time soon” – Omar H. Fares
  • “If Your Brand Comes Before Your Category, You’re Doing It Wrong” – Eddie Yoon, Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead

Categories

  • Advertising
  • AI
  • Analytics
  • B2B Marketing
  • B2C Marketing
  • Big Data
  • Book Reviews
  • Brand Activism
  • Branding
  • Category Design
  • Community
  • Content Marketing
  • COVID-19
  • Creativity
  • Customer Culture
  • Customer Engagement
  • Customer Experience
  • Dark Marketing
  • Decision Making
  • Design
  • Digital Marketing
  • Ecosystems & Platforms
  • Ethics
  • Go to Market
  • Innovation
  • Internet of Things
  • Jobs-to-be-Done
  • Leadership
  • Manipulation
  • Marketing Technology
  • Markets & Segmentation
  • Meaning
  • Metrics & Outcomes
  • Millennials
  • Mobile Marketing
  • Non Profit Marketing
  • Organizational Alignment
  • Peace Marketing
  • Privacy
  • Product Marketing
  • Regeneration
  • Regenerative Marketing
  • Research
  • Retail
  • Risk & Reputation
  • Sales
  • Services Marketing
  • Social Media
  • Strategy & Business Models
  • Sustainability
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos

Archives

  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • September 2024
  • March 2024
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • October 2022
  • August 2022
  • May 2022
  • January 2022
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016

Back to Top

© 2016-19 The Marketing Journal and the individual author(s). All Rights Reserved
Produced by: Double Loop Marketing LLC
By using this site, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to the use of cookies, our privacy policy, and our terms of use.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy