Stakeholder Presentation for LRPP

Posted on Fri, 15 Apr 2011
Tags: long range property plan, lrpp, stakeholder forums

Slide 1

Welcome to our Stakeholder Forum! We appreciate you all taking the time to come out, to hear what we've heard from you and from girls, and give us your feedback about the Vision for our council that have sprung from the data.

I want to start by clarifying that decisions have not been made - We're here tonight to gather your feedback. We'll take feedback from all of the Stakeholder Forums back to the Integrated Task Group who will continue meeting over the coming months. Preliminary recommendation options and stakeholder feedback will continue to go to the Board of Directors for discussion. The Board hopes to make a decision on the final recommendations this month – but is committed to taking whatever time is necessary to ensure the best outcome in meeting girls' needs. At our annual meeting on May 21st, we will provide a full report based on the board's progress or decisions this month. The information will then be communicated out through our newsletters and website. Our commitment to deliver on our promise to girls drives every discussion, every decision, every asset allocation. These decisions will guide us into our future, and the future of Girl Scouts throughout our region. Your attendance tonight is so appreciated and your input is valued – and we look forward to bringing the GIRLS' VISION for our future back to you with full details and specific plans as they emerge.

So let's take a look at what we've learned so far...

Slide 2

We asked girls, both Girl Scouts and non-Girl Scouts, parents, and volunteers to tell us what they really needed, wanted and expected of our programs, services and facilities... and they did.

Slide 3

Our goal now is to share with you what we've heard, to begin sharing the vision that's been created, and to begin forming our path for the future.

Slide 4

Through the Strategic Learning process initiated 18 months ago, we identified that our Winning Proposition, or our KEY TO SUCCESS, is "to deliver a fun, multi-faceted Leadership Experience that empowers & connects GIRLS."

Slide 5

Our Strategic Learning process further acknowledged that the 5 Key Priorities we must focus on in order to achieve our Winning Proposition are:

The LRPP Study originated in response to these last two priorities: Asset Management & Program Delivery.

Slide 6

To ensure a careful, thoughtful approach to an assessment of our Properties, we followed a Strategic learning process once again...

Three committees were formed, made up of volunteers, board members and staff from across our council jurisdiction to gather and analyze extensive data in 3 key areas: Market (ie girls), Program and Property. The data was gathered from both our own tracking of participation rates and evaluation forms, to surveys completed by 830 girls (from every Service Center region and every grade level) and any equally diverse cross-section of 876 adults council-wide. The viewpoints of both GSNWGL members and non-members are represented in the data.

What questions needed to be asked came from a combination of

  1. other councils across the country
  2. GSUSA consultants, and
  3. questions we've received from our own stakeholders over the years.

They ranged from such basic questions as: "What activities are you interested in?" And "How do you (girls and adults) want to participate at camp?"

TO

"What barriers keep you from using a property?" "And how far are you willing to travel for services or to take girls to program events?"

The LRPP committee was charged with:

We began by learning everything we could about our current situation: our members' wants and needs, the wants and needs of the girls we're NOT yet serving, the competition that exists for our customers' time and resources, what barriers to participation are perceived by families... Which is how we identified our Winning Proposition, or our 'KEY TO SUCCESS' – shared a moment ago: to deliver a fun, multi-faceted leadership experience that empowers and connects girls.

Next we began to Align all areas of the organization, from our staff and volunteers, to our culture, to our allocation of resources. And THIS is where the LRPP Study comes in – as it is our Strategic means to align all of our assets, including our Properties, with the needs and wants of girls today.

Slide 7

The VISION & PURPOSE for the LRPP Study is: to develop and operate sites and facilities that support the Girl Scout Leadership Experience within our council's ability to fund and maintain them.

Slide 8

With the GIRLS, or our 'Market', always at the forefront of our exploration.

This slide shows the correlation and driving force behind the LRPP Study. We must always empower our Market (in our case GIRLS) to drive our Program direction, which in turn must drive our allocation of resources, including structure and Property decisions.

Slide 9

From the LRPP Committee, 3 SUB-committees were formed to delve deeper into targeted areas:

Slide 10

Slide 11

Each of the three Research Teams consolidated an enormous amount of data into a handful of the most significant factors, to create a snapshot of our current realities, which we're calling our "Takeaways". The takeaways realized by the MARKET team are that...

The next 2 slides help explain these last two bullets a little better.

Slide 12

The areas shown in yellow, blue and red represent suburban, city and "urban areas". As you can see, even when you combine all yellow, blue and red areas together, you still don't see much area covered. On the other hand, everything shown here in green is considered "rural". And while the rural area is home to 60% of our current members...

This map also shows all 16 of the properties we're talking about: 10 camp facilities (marked with purple circle) and 6 service centers (shown as red diamonds).

Slide 13

Our highest concentration of potential members, or our growth potential, is in the cities. And these are not only our population pockets right now... they are also forecasted to be our population pockets well into the future. The areas circled are the Fox Cities (Oshkosh, Appleton and Green Bay); Wausau; below that-Stevens Point & Wisconsin Rapids; Eau Claire to the west, and Marquette up at the top.

Slide 14

The MARKET Take-Away or Reality is that...

GIRLS:

ADULTS:

Slide 15

From these MARKET Take-Aways came our MARKET Vision...

We welcome your feedback regarding this Vision at MeetingGirlsNeeds@gsnwgl.org

Slide 16

Program attendance is best when close to the girls

Adults need to like and feel good about the programs they sign girls up for, and girls are interested in everything!

And Girls are currently participating primarily through Service Area Events and Portable Programs... again – things that are or can be done close to the girls.

Slide 17

From the PROGRAM Realities we discovered, or "Take-Aways", came the PROGRAM Vision...

Please send any feedback regarding this Vision to MeetingGirlsNeeds@gsnwgl.org

Slide 18

From the PROGRAM Realities we also developed this additional Vision specific to outdoor & camp Programming...

Please submit your thoughts about this Vision to MeetingGirlsNeeds@gsnwgl.org

Slide 19

We want to strategically align our properties to ensure financial viability AND to support our volunteers, and programs and Pathways for the girls.

PICTURE THIS!

For Leadership & Adventure, we can offer:

21st Century Environmental Education – to really help girls Take Action with hands-on programs about:

Health & Wellness – The CURRENT needs and interests in this area, specifically, are:

Art & Culture – can include

STEM (which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) – can really focus on 21st century technology education, career exploration and preparation:

Financial Literacy – by continuing to build programs and resources around the cookie program and other financial skills.

Your thoughts? Please share them with us at: MeetingGirlsNeeds@gsnwgl.org

Slide 20

The LRPP Property take-aways are that, counting both Service Centers AND camps, we have 16 properties to maintain! – and all of them are underutilized and in need of repairs and updates...

Slide 21

Our PROPERTY VISION is that:

Please send your input regarding this Vision toMeetingGirlsNeeds@gsnwgl.org too!

Slide 22

To recap... Our current reality regarding CAMP properties is that

Slide 23

JUST THINK! WHAT IF...
we could offer A PREMIER Resident Camp Program within ~200 miles of nearly every girl, and in MANY cases within 120 miles, that offered...

Slide 24

And what if we could offer day camp programs held ALL OVER our Council - within 30 miles of nearly all girls, by offering more support to volunteer-led day camps throughout the jurisdiction? In other words, some day camp programs would be staff-led, others would be volunteer-led but with staff support... With features like: climbing walls, ropes courses, splash pads & 21st century environmental education learning labs?

What if we could create a "Journey World" program center where girls could experience leadership activities like decision-making, public speaking & consensus building?

Picture this!...

Slide 25

With regard to our SERVICE CENTERS... we have six of them to fund and maintain, and they, too, are underutilized...

Our Service Center usage is less than 20%

70% of volunteers say they visit a Service Center less than once per month

Our Service Centers primarily serve only the counties they are in

...leaving 52 counties underserved

Slide 26

So WHAT IF, instead, we could offer...

– as Gail says, "How cool would THAT be?!"

Slide 27

Thus our dilemma... the purpose and challenge of Long Range Property Planning is to decide...

Do we continue to divide limited resources into several buckets, while trying to maintain baseline standards (and unable to build for girls' dreams)...

OR

Do we pool our resources into a few premier assets & develop them into everything girls & volunteers dream of?!

Slide 28

If we choose the latter, and pool our resources into a few premier assets...

THIS is what we could build for the future, and what girls are asking us to build for the future...

Slide 29

We asked Girl Scouts and non-Girl Scouts, parents and volunteers to dream big. But in order to build the vision girls and volunteers have painted for us, it comes down to some very difficult decisions... keep putting a little bit into ALL of the buckets we're holding (remember that means 16 properties when we combine all of the Service Centers and camps!) or do we build the Vision girls are asking us to build...

And we want to build the vision for girls. HOW we go about that brings up the really tough decisions – even though some may appear somewhat simple on the surface.

Now if you remember from an earlier slide, the VISION & PURPOSE of Long Range Property Planning is to develop and operate sites and facilities that support the Girl Scout Leadership Experience within our council's ability to fund and maintain them.

The 3 subcommittees (Market Research, Program Research and Property Research) gathered and analyzed as much information as possible from our own tracking and ongoing analysis, to current survey results of girls and volunteers – and then combined the data to get a bird's eye view of WHAT WE HAVE versus WHAT GIRLS WANT & NEED.

By doing this, we were able to start comparing and evaluating ALL 16 properties from a few different perspectives. We considered things like

What we came up with is a series of reference or comparison charts to show you some of the different ways we've gone about examining the information we have.

Slide 30

Yes, sometimes a choice in front of us regarding our 10 CAMP properties APPEARS to be cut and dried.

While it may look like some camps offer everything girls and volunteers want...already meeting all of the criteria we're looking for, and we have some that meet very few, they all also need varying amounts of maintenance and updating, and have other factors and details that require consideration.

Slide 31

Take a breather now and think about everything we've looked at so far, what we've heard from volunteers, and about the things girls have told us.

Think about all the times you've heard girls say "I wish we could..." or "Wouldn't it be awesome if we had...!"

Slide 32

When we dig down a little deeper and look at our CAMP properties from a different perspective, look at the maintenance expenses getting split up into TEN different buckets, the proximity of some camps to each other and to our population pockets, plus a few other factors... a decision gets much more complicated. And yes, we love them all! They are all wonderful, amazing camp properties with fantastic assets. But we can't build girls' vision, AND keep them all at the same time. You'll notice that not every camp we have is reflected in these charts – and that's because, as of the Forums, decisions have not yet been made. The purpose of the Forums was to share the data, and collect feedback from our stakeholders.

Right now, we're trying to walk you through our entire process of having to dissect and analyze our property holdings in several different ways. We can't just take the quick and easy approach of "these few are already meeting most of our needs and these are not", or "these are in fairly good condition and these need a LOT of work".

There are LOTS of things to consider before we can make ANY recommendations! We're just trying to show you that in SOME cases, we have to compare a couple that are similar in where and how we can utilize them, and start comparing them head-to-head for a more focused analysis. And we have to do this across the board.

Slide 33

The same thing happens when we look at our service centers... some meet girls' and volunteers' needs and vision very well already, and others less well.

Slide 34

And we have a similar dilemma when we dig deeper and consider several other factors about our 6 service centers, such as proximity to each other, cost, and the needs, wants and usage of our members.

Again, not EVERY service center has been reflected in these charts, and again it's because decisions we did not want to make decisions before we shared the information with, and gathered input from, our Stakeholders. Now we have to get the Service Centers down to the discussion of "lots of buckets with minimal resources spread across them... OR a few premier assets that can adapt to meet the vision painted for us by our members."

How do we ensure fiscal responsibility AND meet the needs and expectations of our girls and volunteers?

Slide 35

If that's not enough! = We have even more factors that are an important part of the equation ...

We want to honor our history

Our members & alumnae have special memories, some from these Properties.

We want to provide opportunities for members to create NEW MEMORIES to continue building their Girl Scout dream

Slide 36

So when we really get down to it, it's about the girls. The reason we exist is to meet the needs of girls, today and into the future. The reason we HAVE programs and properties and Service Centers... is to deliver on our promise to girls, and to support the work of the volunteers who are on the ground, working with girls every day. Girls today are telling us what they want, what skills they need, and what programs and facilities they expect. They're also telling us that we're not there yet.

Slide 37

This thought came from one of our long-time campers...

Slide 38

We planned the Stakeholder Forums to gather your feedback. We'll take feedback from all of the Stakeholder Forums back to the Integrated Task Group who will continue meeting over the coming months. Preliminary recommendation options and stakeholder feedback will continue to go to the Board of Directors for discussion. The Board hopes to make a decision on the final recommendations in April – but is committed to taking whatever time is necessary to ensure the best outcome in meeting girls' needs. At our annual meeting on May 21st, we will provide a full report based on the board's progress or decisions in April. The information will then be communicated out through our newsletters and website.

Our commitment to deliver on our promise to girls drives every discussion, every decision, every asset allocation.  These decisions will guide us well into our future, and the future of Girl Scouts throughout our region. Your attendance at the Forum is so appreciated and your input is valued – and we look forward to bringing the GIRLS' VISION for our future back to you with full details and specific plans as they emerge.

Slide 39

Please email any and all comments or feedback regarding the LRPP Study to:MeetingGirlsNeeds@gsnwgl.org.  These will be forwarded on to the LRPP committee for their consideration and review, and to respond to, if necessary. Thanks for viewing!