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Catalyze
Community Partnerships
Polarized communities
seem to make the headlines, but successful communities are the ones
that work together. We need to create opportunities to cooperate
within and across the region to address common challenges and opportunities.
We need to create a culture of collaborative problem-solving to
achieve a common vision. We must work together to create a community
that is the best place to live, raise a family and own a business.
Ernesto Sirolli, a passionate advocate of building local enterprise,
once said that the greatest reason for the failure of small businesses
was loneliness. Trying to "go it alone" does not work
very well in today's economic environment. If we want a thriving
and prosperous community, we must find ways to work together.
Strategy # 4: Seek ways to catalyze community partnerships.
People often get locked into a single approach to solving community
issues. Groups with different perspectives then find it difficult
to find a common approach to solve the issues resulting in a stalemate
or perhaps a lawsuit. The metaphor of "war" does not work
very well in building successful communities.
One, we need to make the most of established processes for achieving
common agreement on defining and solving issues facing our region.
One such initiative is the Policy Consensus Center, a joint project
between the University of Washington and Washington State University.
The mission of the PCC is to "…to act as a neutral resource
for collaborative problem solving in the region. Its aim is to provide
expertise that improves the availability and quality of voluntary
collaborative approaches to policy development and multi-party dispute
resolution." Members of WSU Extension Faculty in Northeast
Washington have been trained at the Chadwick Consensus Institute,
a respectful and effective process to get beyond conflict and move
towards agreement.
Two, we need to build platforms on which diverse groups can
meet and discuss issues facing our communities. One such platform
is the stewardship concept as it applies to federal forests. There
is a coalition in our region using the stewardship concept to solve
issues regarding the health of our region's forests. The Colville
Community Forestry Coalition has representation from private industry,
advocacy groups, state and federal agencies, and WSU, and has recently
been successful in reaching consensus on how to best manage some
of the most troublesome areas of our forests.
Third, we need to think regionally as we develop our natural
resource, community and economic development plans. A recent
satellite broadcast by the Department of Commerce emphasized several
times during the program that communities must look at their region
to build competitive advantage for local businesses. Building this
advantage is beyond the capability of any of our small towns, but
working as a collaborative group we can build on our assets so that
in one way or another all communities in the region benefit. An
important advantage that NE Washington has is its proximity to Spokane.
The Department of Commerce broadcast reported on research that found
higher levels of prosperity in rural communities that were close
to an urban center. We need to find ways to build bridges with Spokane
to encourage new enterprise for our rural communities as well as
looking at that population base as a market for many of our products
and services. One such connection of promise is WSU-Spokane that
is working on ways to help build our regional economy especially
in technology and health sciences.
The Extension office works with a broad array of private and public
organizations to effectively offer our programs in Stevens County.
Some of these organizations include TEDD, DNR, USFS, AAUW, Rural
Resources, Board of County Commissioners, and Chambers of Commerce.
We regularly connect with various departments on the WSU campus
and across the State in building programs and accessing expertise.
We are committed to building relationships and trust as we work
towards making our region the best place to work, play and live,
raise a family and own a business.
I have covered all four strategies. It is up to our leaders working
in conjunction with local citizens to make our region a prosperous
one. Any comments or observations on ways to build prosperity in
this region are welcome. We hope that these considerations and others
will help us build the prosperity we want.
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