The trend in sustainability seems to be doing these grandiose reports and staying in consultant land, talking about 2030. They’re focused on these big plans. The plan is only 10% of the solution. We want to be sure there is implementation at the grassroots level.
We’re focusing on what we can do in the next two years, which is a lot. Just one thing we’re doing is community-supported agriculture, including helping people get onto "50 mile diets." We’re providing a distribution network for small farms on Kaua’i, which makes them sustainable and gets back to community economics where people are supporting themselves. We’re revitalizing a guava farm when it was going to be shut down.
Keone Kealoha, Executive Director, Malama Kaua’i
Kilauea, Hawai’i
Sure long term plans have a place in the world of sustainability but the short term plans are needed to get things started.
Funders should be interested in dynamic plan that addresses the short and long term goals of an organization. But, in this financial crunch there is an interest on the side of the funders to go with something that is the “most bang for the buck.”
One should not forget that sustainability is a three-fold deal. Environment is only one third of the pie but gets most of the attention. Also included in a sustainable future is SOCIETY and ECONOMY. Sometimes a choice for a sustainable environment can impact the sustainability of the society or the economy. To minimize the impact the transitions need to happen over time. This is why long-term plans receive so much of the attention.
Thanks: David Orace Kelly
MFA Candidate Arts Leadership, Seattle University
Good questions Jan and with so much emphasis placed on ‘sustainability’ and then projects funded only for limited time, allowing no time or operational funding to build into it (sustainability – that can take years). Can be, long term work with short term funding and seems like, big vision future with now only financing!
May seem a silly question but….
Exactly how does the code below WORK to weed spam –generated by machine and can only be repeated by a human??
Thanks: Anon
Thanks for this comment, Anon. I like your insight of the contradiction between the talk about sustainability at the same time that projects are typically funded for a year. Sigh.
Yes, the Comment "code," which asks you to type in the word shown, weeks out the machine-generated comments. Without it we were getting about 30 machine-generated spam comments per day; now it’s about 5 per week. And that’s why the comments are moderated — that is, reviewed by us before they are posted on the web — we post ALL genuine comments (we don’t take out anything because we disagree with it) but we keep out the machine-generated ads and porn masking as comments. Thanks for asking!
We just started our first strategic planning process. During the course of our work, we aim to plan for the next five years, but as we go through the process, we are concerned about making sure this isn’t a plan that just sits on a shelf. I guess the trick to effective implementation is ensuring we identify strategic goals & objectives that are aligned to our values and our philosophy— within the scope of what is manageable for us as well. Does anyone care to share any stories or anecdotes on implementation? Thanks.
I really like the comment, "The plan is only 10% of the solution." Why do funders insist on funding big ambitious plans, and then not the hard, minute-to-minute work that results in those plans having a life beyond their beautifully printed reports?