Public EngagementThe "big tent" of the Public Engagement working group has recently become a little bigger as the Speaker's Bureau, Youth Engagement, Public Awareness, and Community Liaison working groups have all been rolled together within Public Engagement. This was done primarily to facilitate better communication and cooperation between those previously separate working groups that are all involved in some aspect of connecting with the wider community.
Community Conversations and our first survey have gone through a series of trials and revisions and are now finalized and ready to go. IGT will offer a "menu of options" of participation so that you may share what you value about our community in a variety of ways. You can:
1. Take a survey (5-10 minutes),
2. Introduction to IGT - Invite IGT to your meeting (25-45 minutes),
3. Participate in a Community Conversation (1-2 hours), or
4. Host your own Community Conversation (1-2 hours; either with IGT facilitators provided or self-
run, called Conversation-in-a-Bag).
We strongly recommend that residents participate in the full conversation because this can generate new knowledge and yield surprising results for everyone involved. We truly believe that the act of dialogue itself is a powerful tool for community building and positive change. To sign up to request an IGT speaker at your next meeting, to participate in an upcoming Conversation, or to host your own Conversation, please email
conversations@imaginegreatertucson.org.
Youth Engagement is now working on ways of reaching out to the region's youth, including developing a youth-focused conversation that can be brought into the classroom by area teachers. It is important that all the voices of the community are heard.
We are currently researching best practices for ways in which to involve prominent representatives of the community's many diverse stakeholder groups that support IGT's mission. These are people who are committed to bettering the Tucson Region through their own groups and efforts, but may not be able to give time to the everyday administration of the IGT process.
The
Public Awareness team has identified events at which IGT would like to have a presence. The venues are being secured and a list of the upcoming events will be published on the website. Volunteer ambassadors are needed to staff booths and/or walk these events in 1-2 hour shifts, asking attendees what they value about the region. Volunteer to serve as an ambassador for IGT using our new online tool
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/IGTeventvolunteers.
FundraisingThe Fundraising Working Group met this month and discussed fundraising strategies going forward. We have $545,000 in seed money from the Pima Association of Governments (PAG), the Thomas R. Brown Foundation and the Tucson Young Professionals. We need to raise another $60,000 to match the PAG grant of $500,000. For every $10 raised, $50 will be contributed by PAG.
Our current fundraising strategy is 3-pronged. The first, and most important, is to encourage large numbers in the community to give in smaller amounts. This also has the benefit of bringing more voices/interest/buy-in to the overall process. We have been brainstorming different ways to accomplish this goal and involve social media. The second prong is to focus on grants. We are waiting to hear whether we have received the Federal Sustainable Communities Grant. In the meantime, we are focusing on creating our fundraising messaging for both future grant applications and our third prong - focused fundraising outreach. We are organizing ourselves now, creating the messaging and will work to begin implementing our plan in the next 60-90 days.
CommunicationsCaliber Group, Inc. has developed a campaign asking people to "share what you value" and directing people to the IGT website. The messages will be placed on bus shelters (thanks to AdVision), street banners in downtown, and posters in various businesses and locations all over Tucson. Thanks to Graphic Impact for their help with fabrication of many of the materials for our campaign.
Keep an ear and eye (and possibly both) out for IGT's public service announcements. The television and radio spots have been produced and will begin to air in early October. A big thank you to Epic Productions for their production assistance. More information will come about where to see and hear these spots.
The website is being updated and will be ready for the September 30th Kick-Off - thanks to Anchorwave Internet Solutions and Caliber Group. Content and opportunities for interaction will continually be added as the IGT process progresses.
We now have phone numbers thanks to Simply Bits. Our main number is 209-2IGT (2448). Eileen Fagan, Tahnee Robertson and Amy Bhola have extensions on the system. We also have an address: P.O. Box 57719, Tucson, AZ 85732-7719.
Given the enormous size of this process, we are extremely grateful to Nextrio for acquiring and training us in our online collaborative workspace, Huddle, which will help all of the many members of our IGT team coordinate, work together, and share information more easily.
We are now actively posting on our Facebook and Twitter accounts as well so please visit often.
TechnicalRequest for quotes for scenario modeling software and support services were posted to the PAG
www.pagnet.org website and were open until September 28th. We will hold a meeting to review the proposals in early October, and will make the final recommendation and move forward with securing the contract in mid-October. We will discuss the modeling software at the next Tucson Area Geographic Information System (GIS) Cooperative meeting - Oct. 8th.
Process ResearchThe Process Research group has now fully transitioned to functioning in a service role for the other working groups. This means that process research will focus on responding to specific questions, and not on overall background research. We are currently researching some organizational questions from similar efforts to build on their lessons and insights and avoid reinventing the wheel.
Elected Official Engagement
Elected officials from each of the jurisdictions within the Greater Tucson Region have been contacted with the intention of having them commit at least one representative of their offices as a liaison to IGT. We want to ensure, however, that IGT is an apolitical space where everyone can come together to discuss what we agree on, how to embrace our diversity, and work for the overall good of the region.
