Leadership Northwest Missouri graduates’ work in gaining local funding has contributed to the installation of emergency warning sirens in 24 communities since 2003, saving an estimated $856,785 as well as untold lives.
Community Development
Source: MU Extension Annual Report, FY 2008
The Community Development Program works collaboratively with communities to foster economic and leadership development and community decision making and emergency preparedness, and to develop inclusive communities. Last year, the program engaged more than 2,007 volunteers and 2,036 partners, who contributed time valued at $784,835.
In 11 regions over the last three years, MU Extension’s Community Economic and Entrepreneurial Development program, or ExCEED, leveraged $652,500 in community endowments and grants and nearly $223 million in new business investments. In the past year alone, volunteers donated 6,080 hours of effort valued at $104,515. These communities have experienced 58 business startups, 136 new jobs, 45 jobs retained, 39 business expansions and 50 new leaders emerging, as well as new network development.
Webster County Clerk Stanley Whitehurst explains election voting machine procedures to poll workers at training sessions held at the Webster County Extension center in Marshfield. These sessions are part of a training program developed by MU Extension and the Missouri Secretary of State’s office.
The Community Emergency Management Program provided direct support as leaders and residents planned for, addressed and recovered from ice, hail, floods and tornadoes. Information packets and participation with 24 community coalitions for long-term recovery enabled residents, businesses and communities to access resources, make decisions and begin the recovery process. Regional faculty helped conduct 134 prevention and education programs apart from disaster assistance.
Working with emergency management programs in 24 communities, Leadership Northwest Missouri graduates have helped secure $110,647 in local funding commitments and obtain an additional $173,583 in grants to install emergency warning sirens since 2003. These sirens are estimated to have saved $856,785 as well as untold lives.
Ninety-one percent of participants indicated that they used the knowledge and skills gained in MU Extension grant-writing workshops. Fifty-seven percent of Community Development Academy participants reported generating additional resources for their communities and organizations. Their accomplishments include increasing school funding and working with a local foundation to fund one-third of a county’s MU Extension programming.
Nationally, Project Vote highlighted Missouri’s poll-worker training as a model program. MU Extension worked with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Election Division and the Poll Worker Training Advisory Committee to develop a comprehensive training program based on the Help America Vote Act of 2002 regulations, election laws and administrative rules.
MU Extension Community
Development Web site
Success story
Economic Analysis Tool Motivates Community Action
Using a powerful research tool from MU’s Community Policy Analysis Center, Missouri communities are learning about positive alternatives for economic development and quality of life. Brookfield, with a population 4,769, is one such town.
With a focus on entrepreneurship and retaining youth, Brookfield leaders partnered with the center to jump-start the town’s economic engine. After the closing of one of its largest manufacturing plants, Brookfield faced a 1 percent annual population loss. Brookfield’s economic director, Becky Cleveland, collaborated with the center, using its “Show-Me Model.”
According to center Director Tom Johnson, professor of Agricultural Economics and Public Affairs, this statistical model provides projections of local economic conditions at a macro level. For Cleveland, it provided a 10-year baseline that predicted what may happen in her community, given current trends.
In addition to a baseline, the center’s researchers offer “scenario” analyses. For the town of Brookfield, that included questions such as: “What if the community were able to bring back an additional 3 percent of its graduating seniors?” and “What if the community were able to attract an employer to replace lost jobs?” Other communities use statistical models to examine education, transportation, water, ethanol, economic development, health care, tourism, prisons, agriculture, land use and Medicaid issues.
Like all communities that partner with the center, Brookfield created an advisory panel to work on the baseline assessment, which Johnson says is essential to the process. “The bottom line is that, although information is great, it’s what you do with it that matters.”
“Through our work with MU Extension, we have decided that we own the community,” Cleveland says. “We cannot just sit back and complain about outside forces contributing to our decline.”