On Wednesday, September 20th, around 50 representatives of our Voting Member Block, Equity Council and Sector Planning Tables gathered in Ukiah for our Hybrid HRTC Launch Event. Concurrently, many others joined our event through Zoom. It was a very long but productive meeting, both online and in-person. We cannot emphasize enough how much we appreciate the energy, engagement, and input you all provided! Thank you so much, we feel lucky to work with you all.
The in-person gathering started with a networking lunch, followed by a project highlight of Noyo Harbor’s CERF project. Mary Anne Petrillo from West Business Development Center presented their climate-informed CERF initiative—in close collaboration with Noyo Ocean Collective—on revitalizing the harbor. The project highlight focused on how the partnerships for Noyo Harbor’s project were formed, how they came to a collective vision, and what the funds are being put towards. This project highlight provided clarity on what kinds of projects will be eligible to receive CERF funding, and how our HRTC can work towards putting forth competitive projects and initiatives. Watch the Noyo Harbor project highlight here.
Next, Redwood Region RISE’s recently onboarded facilitation partner ThinkPlaceWest gave a training on “Centering Equity in Economic Development Planning: The Power of Honoring Diverse Community Voices”. To start off, ThinkPlace walked us through some examples of socio-economic and climate equity in the context of CERF (Community Economic Resilience Fund): income inequality, access to education and job opportunities, public health equity, environmental degradation, and climate impacts such as sea level rise, drought, and wildfires.
ThinkPlace shared this inspiring video to emphasize the power of empathetic listening as a way to ground our Redwood Region RISE’s efforts in our community’s lived experiences. Using Franklin Covey’s “5 levels of listening”, ThinkPlace zoomed in on empathetic listening—the deepest level of listening: to understand, with curiosity, while being non-judgmental. To put this into practice, both our online and in-person attendees participated in empathetic interviewing around the question of belonging.
ThinkPlace’s training came full circle by setting the stage for our Region to reach universal goals with targeted strategies. This “Targeted Universalism” refers to “setting universal goals and using targeted processes (policies, structures, practices) specific to the needs of diverse population groups to achieve those goals. While the goal is the same for everyone, how different groups get there from different realities requires informed, targeted, population-focused strategies.” You can download ThinkPlace’s PowerPoint Presentation here, and if you have any questions for ThinkPlaceWest, please email Executive Director Michelle Carrillo at michelle.carrillo@thinkplaceglobal.com.
The second part of our meeting was focused on gathering input on our Region’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis. A SWOT Analysis is a helpful way to devise successful strategies for the future, and it’s a crucial part of our Regional Summary Part 1, due to the State at the end of this year. We can honestly say we were blown away by the thoughtful input you all provided - both in-person and online.
We divided our SWOT Analysis up into two rounds. For our first round, we shared these datapoints on our Region’s Demographics & Health, Economic Development, and Environment/Climate. For each of these overarching themes we asked your input to gain insights in our unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
For round two, we collectively answered the question: “How can we overcome our weaknesses, mitigate our threats, leverage our strengths, and seize our opportunities?” through the lens of our four Sector Planning Tables (or “industries”):
Allied Health & Caregiving
Arts, Culture, and Tourism
Renewable and Resilient Energy (Wind, Solar, Microgrids)
Working Lands and Blue Economy
If you haven’t yet and would like to participate in our SWOT Analysis, this Mentimeter link will take you there. After reading some data points relevant to our Region, you will be able to submit your comments to our SWOT questions. Thank you so much!