Today I had the pleasure of being in Cedar Rapids, IA, for their annual United Way Volunteer Recognition Luncheon. Earlier in the day I met with a group of community leaders and discussed the Smart Communities work particularly in light of their own efforts at a community visioning process being lead by city government. The Chamber is also doing something called Fifteen in Five that is very interesting. My question was whether their benchmarks were specific enough to know when they had reached them. For example, one of the goals is regionalism What kinds of markers and how many would be needed to assume success? Essentially I want to know if communities have a good fix on where they are--benchmarks give you that foundation. You get the idea.
They are doing great work and I enjoyed the opportunity to share ideas. At lunch a person next to me said you shouldn't encourage people to "get to the finish" because then they might stop. He made a very valid point. Visioning processes are not an en-game but organic processes that are continually defined and updated. It is not a one-shot deal but an ongoing part of community life. That is a different approach that the spiral-bound book on the shelf scenario that we find too often.
A strong vision of where the community wants to go is critical but having some idea of the outcomes that would spell success and the design of the process are equally as critical. Here are some tips and resources on developing the process that may be helpful to your community. Check out the community capacity tool also. This could provide some additional data for your process.
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