Recommendations for the Legacy Fort Wayne Committee

Monday, October 03, 2011

The Legacy Task Force completed its final meeting on September 29th. You can read more information regarding the recommendations at The News-Sentinel's website and the Journal Gazette's website. Led by the Community Impact Committee, YLNI members attended Legacy Task Force meetings and strategized regarding ways to impact the process. 

In addition to YLNI's original proposal, YLNI also submitted the letter, below, to encourage the Task Force think strategically on how to identify transformative outcomes for the community.  As the process advances to the Mayor and City Council, YLNI is committed to continuing to be a voice for its members and the demographic in order to help make our community a vibrant and viable place to live, work and play.

Dear Legacy Task Force:

YLNI has closely tracked the Legacy process and believes that the following recommendations may be of assistance in moving forward. Please note that our recommendations are just that. However, this additional perspective is offered to the task force as a way to help build upon your existing work by promoting the next step of the dialogue and action.

Recommendation 1: Eliminate Economic Development as a “Bucket”
Certain proposals to the task force have been identified as core economic development projects. With due respect, economic development is not, itself, a bucket – and should not be treated as such. Indeed, any project currently identified as “economic development” should in some way accomplish some predetermined goal. Otherwise, as suggested by some members of the task force, economic development – as an ends itself – is far too nebulous. Ultimately, all of the funds should be utilized for economic development and provided to economic development entities as necessary. Identifying and prioritizing those projects is critical.

Recommendation #2: Identify Truly Transformative Outcomes to Prioritize Projects
YLNI believes that the task force could be more productive if it were to focus on the transformative outcomes. Legacy discussions have often focused on identifying a big and bold project idea as opposed to a big and bold outcome. Transformative change, itself, is a bold notion and does not necessarily require a large investment in brick and mortar if the desired outcome is sought strategically.  A legacy cannot be accomplished without answering the following: what transformative change does this community most need? Based upon input already received from the community, the task force is in a position to prioritize these needs. Of course YLNI would be remiss to not reiterate that the Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community Survey also identified a crucial need to transform perceptions of young college graduates. Regardless, once transformative goals are identified, a logic model should be created to evaluate and integrate current and future projects to those ends.

Recommendation #3: Create A Logic Model Based With Proposals that ‘Made the Cut’
YLNI proposes a basic logic model as way of building upon the existing work of the task force. Currently, the projects are grouped based upon similarities. Instead, we encourage the distillation and categorization of projects based upon transformative goals identified by the task force.

Our logic model starts by changing the three “buckets” currently identified by the task force: Youth; Downtown; and Economic Development.  As previously noted, we took Economic Development out of the “bucket” because we view that concept differently (i.e. investment tools and strategies). Next, we re-categorized Youth Development as “Human Capital” and Downtown/River/Arts projects as “Social Capital.” With transformative goals identified by the task force and a way to evaluate projects, the creativity and the ingenuity of the community should spark the next creative collaboration necessary to truly implement transformation.

Human Capital
We discourage the segregation of “youth development” as its own initiative. Indeed, developing youth is an exercise in futility if the community cannot attract and retain. As we reviewed the totality of the projects identified by the task force, it was easy to see that there exists a heavy dose of concepts that all tied to developing human capital: youth development (arts/sports); STEM; innovation; education; and business incubation.

In other words, how can we strengthen a community of people through development, attraction and retention efforts? Which of those efforts should be prioritized?  If the transformative goals are first identified, then we can better evaluate which human capital efforts are most effective to that end.

Social Capital
The remaining concepts, for the most part, fall under the category of capital improvements aimed at improving the societal connections in the city: river development; downtown development; transit; arts/culture; and housing. Sociologists suggest that understanding social capital is a way of understanding the glue that holds societies together through respective organizations and institutions. From the projects already identified by Legacy, we recommend focusing on institutions related to downtown, culture, and transit/connectivity.

We further note YLNI’s 2020 Vision which identifies the core strengths and needs of the community as seen through the lens of 200 individuals in the YLNI demographic.  Within 36 categories we requested feedback on the region’s best assets, and the region’s greatest areas of need.  Not surprisingly, “professional opportunities” dominated the needs category, followed by mass transit and walkability, river development and culture. Accordingly, we recommend focusing on attaining results in the areas of human capital to improve professional opportunities for knowledge workers, but also to prioritize social capital projects within these institutions. Again, these areas may be prioritized if specific transformative goals are identified.

The purpose of this letter is not to recommend specific funding or projects (yet!). Rather, we propose a way of building upon the existing work of the Legacy Task Force to promote future discussion of more specific, dynamic and integrated proposals to achieve the goals identified by the Legacy process. To illustrate our proposed logic model, we include a diagram depicting how the logic model might apply to one potential transformative goal: changing the perceptions of the opportunities for young college graduates in Fort Wayne. Initial Legacy funding enters the economic development tool box. Through professional guidance, projects are funded that address Legacy’s transformative goal(s).

As a bottom line, every investment should be made through our economic development tool box. The Legacy Task Force has an incredible opportunity to identify transformative goals and potential means to achieve those goals. As always, the Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana is ready to lend a hand.

Very Truly Yours,

Lisa Updike, President
Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana

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