Concordia College, Moorhead
Report date
February 2022
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
In 2021, one of the ways in which the Moorhead Community Resilience Task Force sought to make progress was through three research projects. As we took stock of the first year of the grant, we decided that more information was needed in order to move forward in promoting community resilience. The projects focused on social equity, asset mapping, and comprehensive planning. (1) A local consultant to gather information on the views of members of underrepresented and marginalized groups in Moorhead, with a focus on civic engagement. The consultant worked with community liaisons to hold focus groups. (2) A University of Minnesota graduate student spent nearly 250 hours conducting an asset mapping study focused on inter-organizational connections, greenspaces, and youth programming. (3) An NDSU graduate student examined other cities' community resilience plans, comparing them with the draft of Moorhead’s new Comprehensive Plan. The foci of these projects reflected our evolving sense of priorities and were designed to lead us directly to actions to promote collaboration and resilience. Our engagement with the projects also created shared learning experiences.
A central part of our work centered on engagement in the process of developing a new Comprehensive Plan for the Moorhead. In early 2021, it had become clear to us that greater progress could be achieved by contributing to this process rather by developing our own stand-alone resilience plan. The City of Moorhead and the consulting firm hired to develop the Comprehensive Plan encouraged our input. Several members of the Task Force were involved in the two committees formed to provide regular input. At the July 26 meeting of the Task Force, an initial discussion primed the pump for further engagement. Then, at our September meeting, NDSU graduate student Grete Oanes presented her report. This generated robust discussion and the submission of written feedback and recommendations to the city, highlighting the importance of making equity central to the plan. Throughout the year, it was heartening to see that resilience was a central value in the emerging Comprehensive Plan. No doubt, the work of the Task Force on this grant project played a role in this. Moreover, the full draft of the new plan (released in early 2022) incorporated many of the suggestions made by the Task Force.
A partnership between the Task Force and the City of Moorhead resulted in the planting of a sizeable “edible forest” in one of Moorhead’s parks. This community orchard consists of a variety of fruit trees and bushes. The project generated considerable enthusiasm in the community for how it created an ecologically-friendly site for community gatherings and environmental education. This project was conceived as a way to demonstrate the kind of things we can do to increase ecological health while promoting the well-being of people in Moorhead. Next steps for this area will involve the planting of native pollinator plants and educational events. A second demonstration planting pioneered the concept of neighborhood-based pollinator gardens. These plantings reflect the notion that ecologically-friendly landscapes that promote wellness are a foundational element of a resilient community.
Key lessons learned
We learned that we need to be patient even as we continue to push forward to trying to achieve progress. A venture involving representative from 21 organizations is probably never going to advance briskly towards a goal – or even in determining specific goals and priorities. Once we embraced the idea that collaboration, relationship-building, and traveling together on an evolving journey are our priorities – rather than creating a “resilience plan” and then being done – we also had to embrace the uncertainty and fluidity of the journey. A prime example is our ongoing conversation about social equity in Moorhead. Despite the energy (after the murder of George Floyd) around tackling racial inequity, no clear path for pursuing change emerged. Thus we decided that gathering information from marginalized groups was necessary – and that this had to be done in a collaborative and action-oriented manner focused on strengthening relationships and setting the stage for actions to be taken.
We learned that we need to narrow our focus. Throughout our work as a Task Force, we have struggled with wanting to maintain a broad conception of community resilience while also wanting to make progress in specific areas. In 2021, our model of having working groups organized around five thematic resilience areas finally broke down. One group went dormant, another ran out of steam, and everyone started to feel that we needed a reset of sorts. A community health leader from Essentia, Karen Pifher, offered to assist us in determine our priorities using the Results-Based Accountability model, informed by the Government Alliance for Racial Equity approach. In October and November, she provided training in RBA and then facilitated an interactive prioritization session. The result was a decision to have two foci: improving social equity and enhancing ecological health in ways that promote well-being.
Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving
It is difficult to choose from these since, in our work, they are intertwined. We have continued to prioritize collaboration, even when this means that progress may be slower than would otherwise be possible. Continuing to ensure that all 21 members of the Task Force participate and feel equally included is necessary to maintain a collaborative spirit. This is what has kept everyone coming to meetings and staying engaged. Even when commissioning research, we have endeavored to keep everyone informed and engaged as the research progresses, with meaningful opportunities for input. Being inclusive of groups and voices that are often marginalized has continued to be a core principle of our work. This value underpinned the decision to commission the ambitious focus group study and also shaped the design of this study, inviting community members to be a formal part of the process, with compensation provided. Perhaps the biggest potential pitfall of our project is that is becomes a project of the “elite” and the powerful and seen as such by member of historically marginalized groups. All indications are that this has not happened, and this is the greatest validation of our project.
Other key elements of Community Innovation
What we wrote in our last report still best captures our response to this question, so we will repeat it, with some modifications: Relationship-building was, and will continue to be, a central part of our community process. This facilitates the development of mutual understanding and trust. We know that a community in which people and groups trust each other and are knitted together by relational networks is a stronger and more resilient community. Moreover, we have endeavored to generate trust in the process – to try to ensure that people view and experience our community resilience project as an honest, open, and bottom-up endeavor rather than as a top-down initiative with several dominant players. The second aspect of our community process that is worthy of note here is its intentional adaptability and flexibility. As we went through the year, we realized a need to adjust further our model. We were able to understand that this was an opportunity to practice adaptability, adjusting as we go along and making the best of the situation.
Understanding the problem
Our work in 2021 clarified for us the specific areas on which we should focus our attention. The need defined in the grant application was very broad – increase community collaboration and resilience. In the course of our efforts to understand how to do this, we made some discoveries. First, there was not a pressing need to act in the infrastructure area, nor was the Task Force an appropriate vehicle for action in this area. Second, although health and wellness was and is seen as of critical importance, there was much work already being done in this area. Moreover, it seems that the best way in which can contribute is through a focus on social equity more broadly. Third, despite significant efforts made to understand how we could contribute to promoting economic resilience, we were unable to determine a distinctive role in this for the Task Force given the significant work already being done in this area. On the other hand, throughout the year it became abundantly clear that our distinctive role could be to promote social equity and ecosystem health through the use of collaborative approaches.
If you could do it all over again...
The one piece of advice would be: for this kind of project, the grant director needs more time freed up to shepherd and lead the work. We had thought that contracting with someone to serve as project manager would make the workload manageable. However, while our project manager provided helpful assistance, there were still too many aspects of the project that could only be handled by the grant director. In part, this situation was caused by how the work of the grant shifted as a result of the pandemic and other factors, both internal and external to the Task Force. For example, when we shifted away from broad community engagement through events, a significant part of the rationale for the project manager position (event management) was rendered obsolete.
One last thought
Following the prioritization workshops in October and November, we used the month of January 2022 to take stock of progress to date and chart a path for 2022. This included discussion at a meeting of the full Task Force and a survey sent to all Task Force members. As a result, we have a plan for the final year of this grant, with attention paid to post-grant sustainability of the project.