A binder full of research, thought provoking questions with a vision for the future and a mission to accomplish can be a big pill for anyone to swallow. We have got all that stuff and need to figure out how we will move it forward, not which part, but yes, the whole thing. The board with our staff have agreed on our goals and we will now engage our efforts toward realizing them. We have been meeting as a management team to reach some common understanding for a method that we will help us keep the plan active and central to our daily activities. This does 2 things, it helps us to stay focused on what we consider our core activities to be and it gives us permission to defer, change or stop what does not fit our core activities.
Our 5 goals are stated below in an abbreviated form.
- Identify geographic areas of greatest need
- Enhance and evaluate our current distribution model
- Develop a comprehensive resource development plan
- Engage and partner with individuals and organizations
- Improve awareness of our organization and its family of services
We have 4 management staff “point persons” who have taken on the individual leadership responsibility for each of the goals. They will be organizing other team members and non-staff to assist them in moving toward the achievement of each goal and we will be reporting the progress/status to the board each quarter.
One of the early efforts in moving the needle has been to prioritize our programming going forward. I have stated before, but will again say that Child Hunger Programming is our #1 priority going forward.
This is quickly taking shape in the form of School Food Pantries designed to get a significant percentage of parents into the school to receive food assistance and engage with the teachers and administration for the child’s educational benefit. This is really ramping up in several of our counties. Seniors and the Disabled are our #2 program priority. We are in conversation with some other agencies who can partner with us to bring this into a beginning reality very soon. Our #3 level of priority will be adults between 18 and 60 with no kids. This will probably look much like it does now with church food pantries and Tailgate Food Distributions but could be modified as we go forward.
As we continue to define our ideas to provide Help for Today and Hope for Tomorrow we will want many around the table with us.
There is room for everyone.