Arizona Republic
May 26, 2011
by Lattie Coor
May. 25, 2011 08:09 PM
This is a good news story about Arizona.
Faced with Arizona’s image as a financially strapped, socially contentious, economically distressed society, the Center for the Future of Arizona turned to the Gallup Arizona Poll for guidance as to how we might chart a path for the way forward. We found not only that Arizonans’ love for this place exceeds anything Gallup has found in other regions of the country, but we found also that Arizonans agree more than they disagree on major issues concerning their future. Above all, we found that most Arizonans believe the strength of our state lies in our local communities.
Accordingly, we decided to see just how much vitality and creativity our local communities have in these tough times by launching the Five Communities Project, a statewide competition designed to elicit the best ideas from communities large and small – ideas that would represent their own plans to accomplish the goals of the Arizona We Want, our center’s report drawn from the Gallup Arizona Poll (available at www.TheArizonaWe Want.org). We also pledged to help the very best of these ideas find financial support from national foundations to fund their implementation.
We weren’t sure what kind of response we would get but thought we’d be lucky if we got 30 to 40 proposals. Imagine our surprise and elation when, by last week’s deadline, we had received 95 letters of intent. Communities across Arizona presented us with a dazzling array of collaborative, community-based initiatives for everything from developing transborder economic-development regions to fostering regionwide winemaking collaboratives to forging volunteer community networks to strengthen education, environmental quality, recreational opportunities and social networks for those in need.
Not only are the variety and imaginativeness of the proposals very exciting, but the fact that they come from virtually every region of the state, from the urban areas, of course, but as well from Yuma, Flagstaff, Sedona, the Verde Valley, Lake Havasu, Prescott, and Cochise and Santa Cruz counties, among others, gives testimony to the vitality and interest in community-based initiatives across all of Arizona. Interestingly, 87 percent of the proposals involve a public-private partnership for their success, suggesting a very promising way for citizens and their elected officials to work together in shaping their communities’ future.
Our job now is for a selection committee that contains representation from national foundations to review all 95 proposals, ultimately selecting 10 finalists by late summer – in time for them to present their ideas to the National Conference on Citizenship, which will be held in Phoenix on Sept. 22 and 23. Following the national exposure the communities will get at that conference, five communities will be selected to develop their proposals to compete for national-foundation funding. If awarded funding, each community will have three years of financial support to implement their proposals.
We believe these initiatives offer an inspired way to engage citizens in communities throughout Arizona in developing their collective capacity to shape their future, and, in so doing, in strengthening their trust in their community and fostering a stronger social compact between citizens and their elected officials.
The response to the Five Communities Project is an encouraging first step in helping us build, community by community, the Arizona we want for the future.
Lattie Coor is chairman and CEO of the Center for the Future of Arizona and president emeritus of Arizona State University.