NORTHWESTERN NORTH DAKOTA, 2003
Project Description
Recognizing that poverty had turned northwestern North Dakota into a “Landscape of Loss,” project organizers sought to plan for change, and the creation of a “Landscape of Opportunity.” The region faced many typically rural problems—lack of jobs, education and skills; youth flight and outmigration; and lack of infrastructure—as well as racial issues between Native American reservations and white communities. The Dakota Dreams project first identified and characterized poverty through storytelling, interviews, and statistics; it then developed comprehensive strategies for reducing poverty and treating associated conditions. Local participation was a focus of the project from the visioning stages through implementation, with the specific goal of identifying and creating leaders in communities that don’t traditionally participate in planning. While not designed to address land use planning, the organizers included many actions related to traditional planning, recognizing that development, transportation, and community character are all inherently tied to poverty.
Finance and Support
The budget for the Dakota Dreams planning process was approximately $300,000, funded primarily by the Northwest Area Foundation. At the request of the Foundation, the 15-month process was spearheaded by the Northwest Venture Communities, Inc., and involved more than 650 people from 65 communities.
The budget for implementing the project plan was estimated at $49,711,200 for the first three years. The Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) requested just over $7 million dollars, with matching funds accounting for the other $42 million dollars. Approximately $2.5 million of the total was allocated for personnel and operating expenses, with the other $47 million going to fund programs and project work. The plan calls for a budget increase for years 4-10, up to $271,487,900, or a total ten year project budget of $326,783,100. The largest components of the budget were allocated for housing assistance, job creation, and community grant funds, with another significant portion for education and leadership development.
Stakeholders
The Dakota Dreams project covered eight counties in northwestern North Dakota; participants in the planning process came from 65 communities. While all citizens were invited to participate, the plan specifically addressed poverty and those living in poverty were considered the main stakeholders. In particular, the plan focused on those groups considered most critical in the fight against poverty: people in the lowest economic quartile, reservation communities, and youth.
Methods
The visioning process of the Dakota Dreams plan used appreciative inquiry as its central method. For this phase, organizers held community meetings, storytelling sessions, sent out surveys, and created focus groups. Organizers made special attempts to reach out to the most poverty-stricken individuals and make participation easy: they visited people in their homes or communities, used communication methods (like word of mouth and newspaper notices) that were accessible to uneducated and poor people, and they incorporated participation into existing poverty-relief programs and job services so that it would not require extra time and effort. Organizers also made strong attempts to involve youth, since youth flight is one of the primary issues facing the region; 20% of the group reviewing the final plan was comprised of youth under the age of 18. The Appreciative Inquiry approach called for questions and interviews based upon positive aspects of the community, which were rare in this region. One Native respondent commented that nobody had ever asked him before what was good about his community.
After collecting information from more than 650 participants and 1250 survey respondents, Northwest Venture Communities Inc. (NCVI) crafted a vision statement and a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty over 10 years. The vision statement included the most important comments from interviews and stories, which were centered on community character. The plan, while not explicitly addressing community character, calls for a number of steps that maintain or improve the positive aspects of their communities that people mentioned. More importantly, the plan specifies that poverty relief should not come at the expense of the character or well-being of any communities or individuals. The plan recognizes the existence of poverty on multiple levels of organization—from individual to family to community to region—and contains strategies for addressing issues on each level. Finally, the plan contains benchmarks and evaluation questions for each main goal and strategy, as well as an evaluation plan for tracking progress and allowing the plan to evolve.
Outcomes
The planning process not only developed ideas for treating poverty, but also operated as an experiment in poverty reduction itself. Key leaders and stakeholders were recruited from the poorest sectors of society, and were trained and engaged in the project from the beginning. By the time the report was released, jobs had been created, education increased, and philosophical barriers broken. Midway through the project, the organizers created a “Journey to Prosperity trail ride” that included members from all communities, income levels, and ethnic groups. Riders appeared on horses, motorcycles, in cars, on foot, on bicycles, and other modes of transportation; the event increased communication and helped to improve cooperation among groups that rarely communicated. No comprehensive evaluation has been released, so it is unclear how many of the action steps have been implemented; NCVI does maintain a website with resources for job searching, domestic abuse, education, and many of the other issues raised in the report, as well as resources relating to the Dakota Dreams report itself.
Evaluation
NVCI advocated for major evaluation processes at years 3 and 6, in the hope that positive developments by those times would enable the communities to successfully apply for new grants, in turn furthering the work in the plans. Plan authors also recognized the importance of adaptive management, and saw the potential of the 3- and 6-year evaluation points for re-evaluating and changing strategy if necessary. The plan designated benchmarks for each specific idea, extending ten years into the future. Most goals had specified report-out dates within one year of initiation, as well as advisory committees that are required to meet once a year to review progress. NCVI hoped to train all clients and participants in the projects, as well as interested citizens, in participatory social science research methods; the goal was to create a large pool of potential evaluators. Finally, the organization planned to develop an electronic system for tracking, analyzing, and reporting on evaluation data that came in.
Innovative Ideas
The primary section of the plan relating to character contains one maxim: “Do no harm.” While it specifically addresses the communities included in this plan, it also looks outward. The plan seeks to spur growth and alleviate poverty without eliminating the values and character of the region, damaging the environment, or causing unintended economic consequences to families and communities. Most unusual, however, is the statement that growth in the region should not come at the expense of an increase in poverty somewhere else. Few plans consider how changes in their communities will affect the character and well-being of neighboring communities.
Another major innovation in the plan is the attention to building leadership and community capacity through the planning process. While most plans provide a timeline for implementation beginning with the adoption of a plan, Dakota Dreams sought to have some measurable accomplishments in place at the time of the plan’s release, and indeed brought about by the plan itself. Most notable are efforts to bridge the gap between the Reservation and other communities, to increase youth employment by including Job Corps workers in the planning and review process, and to engage the lowest economic quartile in major leadership positions and participatory programs. Dakota Dreams also set a very specific timeline and assigned responsibilities for action steps, which helped to ensure accountability and progress.
http://www.nvci.org/resources/Dakota%20Dreams%20Final%20Plan.pdf
DAKOTA DREAMS AT A GLANCE
COMMUNITY TYPE
Eight counties and reservations
AREA
14,357 square miles (including eight counties and one reservation)
POPULATION
103,315
(more than half live in one county)
LOCATION
Northwestern North Dakota
PROCESS
Appreciative Inquiry
PROJECT LEADERS
Northwest Area Foundation
Northwest Venture Communities
Inc.
Heartland Center for Leadership
Development
PROJECT THEMES
Poverty
Youth Flight
Racial Tension