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December 29, 2009
Citizens League Three-Year Goals Proposed
In 2012 the Citizens League will turn 60 years old! In recognition of what we've accomplished, and what is needed -- and possible -- in Minnesota, the Board recently approved a set of three-year goals.
We're building a 2010 workplan based on these goals -- but we'd love your feedback, input, and support.
(NOTE: See Extended Entry for replies to comments.)
Thanks - Sean
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In 2012 the Citizens League turns 60 years old! This is both a reminder of our historic achievements and a rallying point for our future efforts.
In these next three years, the Citizens League will use its mission of "building civic imagination and capacity" in order to achieve the following goals:
1) Impact public policy in Minnesota. The Citizens League will lead current approaches to policy making on the issues that matter most to Minnesota's economic health and quality of life. We will use our unique civic model of policy development and civic engagement to:
* Reframe critical policy issues so they are easier to understand, and position us to drive the collective public conversation;
* Develop policy solutions, based on our mission/principles and values, that provide effective, systemic, and long-term policy strategies to address these issues;
* Convene stakeholders in order design solution strategies to implement existing policy proposals;
* Influence policy decisions, turning these recommendations into reality; and
* Identify and build the partnerships necessary to achieve this goal.
2) Build and connect civic leaders. The Citizens League will develop a long-term base of civic leaders in all generations and institutions that can govern for the common good and sustain this impact on public policy outcomes. We will leverage our current base of members and partners to:
* Grow membership to at least 3200 individual and institutional members that represent Minnesota's diverse population;
* Implement a civic leadership training program in a wide range of institutions and settings;
* Increase and sustain opportunities for member engagement that don't depend on proportional increases in staffing; and
* Broaden and deepen our cross-sector institutional base for this work.
3) Achieve organizational sustainability. The Citizens League will become a national model for civic nonprofits. We will use our recent success to:
* Continue to design and implement a new business model with a sustainable base of funding;
* Use new technologies to advance our workplan and increase member involvement;
* Demonstrate new models for effective policy solutions and civic engagement strategies;
* Become debt-free, with sufficient operating reserves; and
* Develop internal governing policies based on our operating principles and organizing disciplines.
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Claudia Dengler's (great) questions:
1) Are we positioned for partnerships? Our genuine nonpartisan status, along with our multi-issue approach (we're not seen as ideological/partisan OR a single-issue group) have helped us tremendously in the past. We have evidence of these partnerships functioning well and adding real value (MN Mental Health Action Group; Transportation Pricing and Urban Partnership Agreement), and the evidence shows that partnerships are key to us having impact on policy issues.
2) Are we connected to Chamber leadership programs? Not sufficiently -- not right now. Over time we've had numerous conversations with people who have seen the synergy between the two programs (ours and the Chamber programs). Now that we're starting ours, we have to make this connection more real.
The Chamber programs do a great job of connecting a diverse group of leaders, and they introduce them to critical public policy issues in the region. The Citizens League helps can be a place where the alumni who are interested in more work/learning on these issues can continue to connect with each other after the program. AND we're in a position to say "now that you know how much education/health/transportation/etc matter -- we'll help you understand your role in making a difference on the issue", as well as continuing to help people understand the issues better.
A long way of saying that we complement each other really well I think.
3) Business model evolution:
* While maintaining the points in #1 above, and trying to build-in more budget autonomy, we will put more emphasis on fee-related work and program income -- using our learnings about new engagement models and civic organizing as a means to do better policy work.
* New emphasis on corporate membership program as part of our sustainability.
We can't hope that money to go-do-good-policy-work will fall from the sky from individuals, foundations or corporations. We need to make a case for this work, but increase our sustainability through these other means.
Doing the former helps the latter.
Helpful? Thanks.
Sean
Posted by Sean Kershaw at December 29, 2009 9:14 AM
Comments
Building partnerships - esp. private/public ones will be critical to moving important policy issues forward - is CL positioned to do this?
Re: Civic Leadership - speaking of partnerships...how are the 2 leadership dev. programs offered by the Chambers of Commerce connecting to the CL?
And last...how would you describe the new business model?
Posted by: Claudia Dengler | January 4, 2010 11:44 AM