Community Development Resource Center for Yavapai County, AZ

Yavapai County Community Resource Center
Fostering Volunteerism, Civic Engagement, Leadership, and Community Economic Development

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Introduction to the Community Resource Center Vision and Mission

"When a community and its people are empowered, they have the capacity to articulate their needs; to identify actions to solve those needs; and to mobilize and organize resources in pursuit of commonly defined goals. When the people of a community come together to visualize and work together to achieve a common future, they recognize that everyone--regardless of education, job, race, age, or background--has something important to contribute to personal and community empowerment. Indeed, the greater the diversity of the participants, the richer the vision and the more effective its accomplishment" -- Lorraine Garkovich, University of Kentucky

The initial group of cofounders of this project have recently completed a Co-creative Visioning process to help us begin to develop a shared Vision Statement along with a Mission Statement and action plans. Following are the initial answers to the first question of what are the top positive developments we would like to see happen and help bring forth through a Community Development Resource Center within the next three years.

This draft web site was created to demonstrate how our vision might be successfully implemented and to be able to provide an introduction to the project as we invite additional collaborators, members, resource providers and sponsors. Click Here for one example of the types of programs would be designed and delivered is demonstrated in the Success Center Partnership Newsletter from an award-winning application of these concepts for the Muncie, Indiana Public Housing Authority.

Ten positive things we would like to see happen and help bring forth within the next 3 years:

Fritzi

1. Yavapai County Resource Center: A Civic Academy for Servant Leadership for elected officials in county, city/town and school board positions.
2. Yavapai County Resource Center: A Volunteer Center that would provide community residents with an organized and detailed catalog of volunteer opportunities in addition to a teaching center for prospective/potential volunteers and those already actively volunteering with a community benefit organization (s). The focus of the teaching center would be to foster civic engagement with thoughtful interactive dialogue and instruction about the needs of our community and its many assets and resources.
3. Yavapai County Resource Center: A Non Profit Academy for Directors and Board Members of Community Benefit Organizations for education in Financial Management and Oversight, Board Governance, Ethics, etc. in an interactive group format.

Lori

1. Curricula designed for delivery across Yavapai County, which would teach core skills not available in existing venues. This would include knowledge/skills needed to be a leader in a publically elected position, school boards, town councils, and/or non-profit boards; managing volunteers or being an effective volunteer; access to various types of resource information; etc.
2. A physical location for the Resource Center, including access to meeting rooms as well as the technology to deliver classes to outlying areas.
3. Organization infrastructure for managing funds, staff, a board, etc.
4. Consistent funding streams whether through grants, classes, or foundations.
5. Public recognition across the county; community trust will have been established and the organization will be recognized as the ‘go to’ place for information and training.

Dennis

1. Nonprofit training academy facilitated by non-profit advisory board
2. Volunteer training and resource center focus on servant leadership
3. The resource center is self supporting
4. Other areas in the country are asking “how did you do that?”
5. Resource center housed at Prescott College
6. Curriculum developed for non-profit academy that’s exportable
7. Center easily serves all of Yavapai County by use of interactive technology

Charles

1. A successful model of a non-profit Community Economic Development Empowerment Resource Center serving thousands of area residents with programs that empower, enlighten and prosper participants and foster lifelong learning, especially of successful living skills including Infopreneurship.
2. Operating (and manifesting stewardship/ownership) of a multi-purpose Community Resource Building with several other affiliated locations throughout the service area.
3. Delivering ongoing calendar of monthly, then perhaps even weekly, classes, seminars, workshops that provide valuable benefits to individuals, non-profit organizations, companies, service clubs, etc.
4. Delivering an ongoing calendar of larger scale development training programs, initially perhaps annually, biannually or even quarterly if and when sufficient interest is generated to ensure success.
5. The project enjoys becoming self-sustaining within its first year of operation and is widely recognized as a highly successful model of collaborative efforts.
6. The projects, its participants and programs coproduce many new intellectual properties that reach, bless and serve other populations including print and electronic publications, seminars, workshops, audio/video, etc.
7. The project generates sufficient net proceeds to be able to match the grants from the Verde Valley United Way and Yavapai Community Foundation in 2011.
8. Community leaders from all over the United States and the world come to experience the project and learn how to replicate its success in their own communities. As a result, additional funds are generated to further support and expand the project.
9. As a result of the Project and the programs it offers, there is much broader local, regional and national appreciation of components such as Servant Leadership and Community Economic Development.
10. The project receives national (and international) recognition and awards as a model of how locally initiated not-for-profit Community Resource Centers based on collaboration and CED Principles and Practices of Self-Help, Empowerment and Capacity Building can produce significant results including saving and creating jobs, enhancing the quality of life for area residents, helping enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of NPOs, etc.

Jean

1. City government employees more tuned in to issues of homelessness and poverty in our community and willing to do something about it.
2. Establish local facilities to house the homeless on a temporary basis with transitional housing.
3. Life skills, job training and general emotional support of the poor and homeless – including my CCJ project.
4. Better community wide communication about what’s happening and what needs to happen.
5. Better public transportation.
6. More community involvement with Prescott College.
7. Encouragement and training for young people in public service.
8. Establish a central clearinghouse for the needs and opportunities for volunteers.
9. Eliminate the divisions in the community and develop a true community spirit of cooperation.
10. Create a way for the rich and poor to work toward a common goal.

Maggie

1. Youth civic engagement program in schools or after school engages area youth in solving community issues.
2. Civic leadership program supports emerging community leaders and teaches them about our citizen developed center.
3. Community volunteers connect with each other in designing programs that build volunteer capacity.
4. A thriving community center brings together community members, organizations, local government and youth in creating a thriving Prescott area.
5. National days of service connect an active Prescott to an active US civic culture.
6. Foundations and United Way respond to clear community priorities as articulated by the leadership of the Servant Leadership Center.
7. College students find an easy transition to becoming active community members.

Next Steps and How You May Participate in Cocreating the Community Resource Center:

The Community Resource Center planning committee is now working to refine our individual vision statements into a single list of 10 major desired outcomes. Then we will add a page for each of those priorities, publish overview statements of how those priority activities would be accomplished, establish a subcommittee for each one as appropriate, list examples of the types of resources that will be made available for that topic, create and distribute Interest Surveys to attract ongoing expansion of the number of people and organizations involved in the program component, develop and implement action steps as appropriate, etc.

The planning committee for the Resource Center, members of the subcommittees and other interested collaborators will periodically conduct seminars, workshops, resource showcases and additional co-creative visioning and strategic planning activities to attract additional collaborators, members, resource providers, and sponsors. One example of such a resource is The Three Round Method of Brainstorming. This highly interactive and fun process was developed by the National Center for Community Education and the Mott Foundation.

We plan to produce introductory materials on the Resource Center including brochures, print and electronic newsletters, etc. along with continuing refinements to this web site, a related blog site, and completion of a Success Puzzle Template for the Resource Center like the example provided for Sedona Collaborative Enterprises.

Click Here to review an example of an introductory print newsletter developed for the Success Center Partnership that introduces some of the world's best resource providers and examples of Successful Living Skills for the 21st Century that would be provided through the Community Resource Center.

The Yavapai County Community Resource Center is being supported with access to the resources available through the Expanding the Circle of Success Campaign to establish a national, and then international network of locally initiated, non-profit Community Economic Development Resource Centers as described at www.ultimatesuccesspuzzle.com. Click Here for the introductory details also provided in a PDF document.

Our Invitation:

You are invited to participate in the ongoing evolution and refinement of the Community Resource Center and or any of the major program activities. You are also invited to complete the various Interest Surveys as they are developed and made available for input and to share your vision and priorities as you see them by completing the three-page Co-creative Visioning Forms. Thank you!

Click Here for a Composite of the Visioning Forms Click Here to Share Your Vision

Click Here for the Strategic Implementation Matrix™ for establishing a network of CED Empowerment Resource Centers developed by Charles Betterton, cofounder of Ultimate Destiny University for Successful Living.