Background. Successful community groups have the capacity to mobilize community assets to address needs. Capacity building education is integral to building competent communities. Objectives. A community-university team developed and pilot tested an education program for community advocates from disadvantaged neighborhoods with high chronic disease burden. Methods. The Community Advocacy and Leadership Program (CALP) included eight monthly workshops, a mini-grant opportunity and technical assistance. A nominal group with community health practitioners, focus group with community advocates and a literature search comprised a triangulated educational needs assessment. A participating pretest with thirty-five community health practitioners guided curriculum refinement. Seven representatives from three community groups in a medically underserved South Carolina county participated in pilot implementation and evaluation. Qualitative and quantitative data informed the process and impact evaluation. Conclusions. The mean knowledge score at one month post-program was 77% (range=52% to 96%). The mean score on post-program self-assessment of skills improvement was 3.8 out of a possible 4.0 (range=3.6 to 4.0). Two groups submitted successful community mini-grant applications for playground improvements, and the third group successfully advocated for public funding of neighborhood park improvements. Participants reported favorable impressions and both personal and community benefits from participation. A community-university partnership successfully conducted a local educational needs assessment and developed and pilot-tested a capacity development program within a CBPR partnership. Successes, challenges and lessons learned will guide program refinement, replication and dissemination.

Although social support is a frequently cited enabler of physical activity, few studies have examined how to harness social support in interventions. This paper describes community-based formative research to design a walking program for mobilizing naturally occurring social networks to support increases in walking behavior. Focus group methods were used to engage community members in discussions about desired walking program features. The research was conducted with underserved communities in Sumter County, South Carolina. The majority of focus group participants were women (76%) and African American (92%). Several important themes emerged from the focus group results regarding attitudes toward walking, facilitators of and barriers to walking, ideal walking program characteristics, and strategies for encouraging community members to walk. Most noteably, the role of existing social networks as a supportive influence on physical activity was a recurring theme in our formative research and a gap in the existing evidence base. The resulting walking program focused on strategies for mobilizing, supporting and reinforcing existing social networks as mechanisms for increasing walking. Our approach to linking theory, empirical evidence and community-based formative research for the development of a walking intervention offers an example for practitioners developing intervention strategies for a wide range of behaviors.