5/16/2014
Another terrific meeting today! Thanks to Sarah Boxx of Social Entrepreneurs for showing us how a capacity building academy can be done in our area. It’s clear that what was done in San Bernardino can be done elsewhere, and Washoe County is a wonderful opportunity for this!
We started the meeting with answering the question: What’s the most important thing to learn today? Several responses:
- Systematic evaluation vs. waiving our arms around
- Strategic plan that has vision for the community
- Framework to go deep and cross over
- Capacity building for our whole community
Sarah described SEI’s work and gave examples of work they’ve done in San Bernardino to demonstrate what community collaboration can look like. My key takeaways are these:
- To measure, we need to identify the specific results; we need the results to tell a collective story.
- SEI’s application process helps identify who should be in the capacity building institute/academy.
- Need commitment from a core group to move forward.
- Need to identify the desired results and create a vision for those desired results.
Our next step is to start working on that last bullet point. Anne Cory and Deb Loesch Griffin agreed to facilitate the next two meetings (more if needed) to help us identify the desired results we want and create a vision for them. A couple of questions we will consider:
- What is our vision for the changes we want to make in our community?
- What will be different as a result of those changes?
Having an institute/academy may be a strategy for helping accomplish the goals we identify.
Here’s the upcoming meeting schedule:
5/23—dark
5/30—8-9:30 a.m. at HUD’s Reno Field Office 745 W. Moana Lane, Suite 360 (not United Way)
6/6—8-9:30 a.m. at HUD’s Reno Field Office 745 W. Moana Lane, Suite 360 (not United Way)
6/13—8-9:30 a.m. at United Way, 639 Isbell, Reno, 4
th floor
The group has decided to provide a conference call line for those who cannot attend in person. That number is 712-432-1500; PIN is 865321#.
For those who are lurking on this list, we encourage you to come and participate. Organizations that are already doing EBP are valuable components of this conversation. This group is focused on strengthening the capacity of the whole community and taking a leadership role in making EBP part of the DNA of how programs are measured. Your voices at the table are valuable because you have much to offer in terms of how embracing EBP has strengthened your services and ultimately your organizations.
