March 20, 2014 Meeting Summary

Opening Remarks

JoAnn Stormer and Steve Borchardt recapped the history, and the evolution of the community network group (CNG):

Rochester Area Foundation's role--that of an interim host

Emphasizing that CNG's current format is "experimental in nature" and "we will adjust to benefit network participants"

The network must offer value to the network contributors and and participants. Some indicators might be: attendance, feedback, level of buy-in, an increased awareness and understanding of each other's plans and needs, etc.

Journey to Growth  (Gary Smith - RAEDI)

• A five-year plan that aims to improve the economy from an additional angle.
• A steering committee of 26 business leaders from Olmsted, Dodge and Wabasha 
  
• Plan aggregates community feedback from more than 2,600 survey responses.

Three major themes:

1. Expand and diversify the economy.
2. Optimize the regional talent base.
3. Become a more cohesive and connected region.

A 501C3 Corporation will be formed to execute the plan:

• Collaboration is key and partnership with other community groups is essential,
• Expected annual budget is 500K to 700K, a 5 year plan horizon
• Plan be available to the public from RAEDI soon

Takeaway

• Useful for the Journey to Growth steering committee to provide feedback/status updates to the focus groups that have taken time to provide inputs to the plan
• Our area is on a clear economic growth trajectory. We have a strong business, social, public, philanthropic culture of collaboration. It is great place to do business because of the human and capital investments we are willing to make. We are offering a high-quality business and community environment for businesses to thrive and prosper. We should articulate this value proposition for new businesses in order to set the tone and expectation for them to support this strong community culture and tradition. It's a long-term commitment and holistic vision.
• Economic growth has social side-effects (education system, property value, land speculation, etc).  We need to collectively plan for these needs.

Collective Impact (April Suitor - United Way)

CLICK Link to full view

Takeaway

April to share specific articles on collective impacts for network members to review

Future CNG Topics

• cpg.dcmbeam.org site demo and its collaboration potential - Al Lun
• A visualization of community dashboard: look and feel, navigation from key metrics (executive summary), to regional plans and their inter-connections - Al Lun
• Social Impacts
• School District planning updates
• RAF plans
• UMR plan
• Update on city/county plans