Hey, it’s summer… why would anyone want to talk about homework???
While homework is something we all remember when we were kids, it was confined to the school year!
For the Foundation, homework is a year-round effort because, like school, homework is one of the most important things we can do with our time.
Why?
Because homework is how we study for big tests!
Our “homework” is what we do to conduct studies, build data sets, and gather information to be as educated as possible on how we spend our grant and operating dollars – “our tests.”
Doing our homework helps us spend a relatively smaller amount of money up front so that we are more confident when we spend a larger amount of money on a bigger grant, investment, or development project later.
Today I want to share a few recent examples of what our homework assignments are!
First is a Master Plan project, something we are conducting in partnership with the City of Barberton. The project is co-funded by the Planning Department and Barberton Community Foundation. The Foundation has committed up to $75k to this project.
I’ll address that dollar figure in a minute.
First, a good question is, what is a Master Plan? The quick answer is “a shared roadmap for the city’s future.”
The roadmap has a plan for our neighborhoods, downtown, parks, housing, and our local economy. It helps us make smart decisions on purpose, spend resources wisely, and compete for outside funding to help us reach our goals better and faster.
Based on that definition, we probably want to work with experts, right?
The answer for the Foundation is always YES to that question.
Here’s why.
We have a lot of experienced people in our community. We are lucky for that. But well-intentioned and experienced people aren’t necessarily experts!
For example, you can drive a car every day for 30 years… that's great experience! But that doesn't make you a mechanic who can diagnose an engine issue, or an engineer who can design a better car for the future. That's expertise. Lots of driving isn't the same as understanding the machine.
That’s because learning to be a mechanic requires amassing expertise through direct education, opportunities to work on the same problem in a multitude of different vehicles (including learning ways NOT to do things), having seasoned experts there to answer your questions when you get stuck, having the right tools (and knowing how to use them all), and so much more!
The harsh reality is that experts are expensive! And the more specific your need for expertise, the larger the price tag that goes along with it.
Back to our Master Plan project… we asked ourselves a tough question: Do we have experts who have completed dozens of city-wide master plans for the types of cities that are our size, in our state, that residents love and people want to move to? Since the answer was no, we needed to find experts who have accomplished amazing things and bring their talents to our community in partnership with us.
Because Barberton is awesome, and we deserve to have the best!
Also, if we are going to make big investments in our downtown, economic and community development, real estate, etc. – shouldn’t we have a well-thought out plan that we are using to guide our steps?
Of course!
This essential homework is something we’re able to do because of the Foundation’s presence and role in our community, the strength of our partnerships, and our ability to help make working on this type of project in Barberton enticing to qualified experts.
The Master Plan is just one of our current homework assignments.
We’re also working on a feasibility study for experts in the hospitality industry to study if, where, and how a hotel could be a successful business in our community. Without a study, any businesspersonwould be blindly guessing whether or not a hotel business could be successful in Barberton. We want to have hard data and evidence that prove we have the right business conditions for a hotel to be successful, so we found a top expert on the subject and hired them to do the study. We’ll be excited to share the results when we have them!
Those are just two of a handful of examples to share. In fact, when I started writing this to you I thought I’d have space to include a research fellowship we’ve launched, but I ran out of space!
If you have questions about our homework – or are thinking of an assignment you think we should do – call, email or drop by the Foundation! I’d love to hear it.
In Community,
Josh Gordon
Executive Director
Barberton Community Foundation