You’re a city, town, village – that is, you live in one of these and care about your community. Like everyone everywhere, you’ve got resources, talented people, and you’ve got issues that need improvement as well as a future that needs planning.
Generally speaking, what’s the better plan for improvement going forward?
A. Create all new resources and talent in order to take a fresh look at the issues (bring in the consultants, hire an organization).
B. Manage existing resources and talent in a way that offers improved outcomes – restructure.
Both actions can be good: certain issues will require outside help while others may benefit most from structural changes in management. That’s always a choice, but regardless of which path is followed, the way information is managed will always affect outcomes.
The following plans are designed to improve information accessibility and resource utilization by promoting networking and collaboration. They are relatively simple to implement, rely on existing resources and talent, and are designed to respond as circumstances and needs change. They are also low-cost to implement.
Library Community Network (LCN): by encouraging collaboration between the local public library, nonprofit organizations, and the community, the LCN plan provides a path for nonprofit resources to be more accessible to the local community.
Community Risk Management (CRM): a local government work group consisting of department representatives meets to assess the benefits and costs – gains and losses – of proposals addressing critical issues.
Each plan has a beginning step that can evolve and change as different needs arise.
LCN begins with a directory, managed by the public library, that lists nonprofit organizations serving the local community.
CRM begins with a group meeting of government departments that relies on a process of comparing gains and losses in evaluating proposals under consideration.