As you may recall in the last e-Visions, the Heartland Center was conducting community assessment and strategic planning for Henderson, Nebraska, a community of 986 people located 65 miles west of Lincoln. Three data collection efforts were utilized, including key informant interviews, an online Community Capacity Questionnaire and three focus groups, one composed entirely of youth.
Two town hall meetings were facilitated by Milan Wall and Kurt Mantonya of the Heartland Center in order to guide Henderson and rural York County residents through a strategic planning process. These town halls were grounded in Appreciative Inquiry where participants go through the four phases of Discovering their past, Dreaming about their future, Designing a preferred future and Delivering results. The first town hall, held in November, 2009, with approximately 86 people in attendance, served as the kickoff and took participants through the first two phases.
In January, 2010, Heartland Center staff facilitated a second town hall, with approximately 70 people in attendance to present the findings from the data collection. After the presentation, the final two phases of Appreciative Inquiry process were completed. At the end of the evening, four community priorities were established that included: Attracting and retaining young people, housing development, business development and building a community center. A task force made up of town hall participants was established for each of these priorities and discussion on next steps and adding additional members concluded the evening.
The Heartland Center has conduct these town halls for the past five years in several communities in Nebraska, helping them identify priorities for community betterment projects. The process requires only a few hours and brings a lot of energy and excitement into a community. If your community would like to explore such a process, please contact Kurt Mantonya at kmantonya@heartlandcenter.info.
0 comments:
Post a Comment