Overall Benefits of Program Approach (UPDATED 2014)
State agencies and community partners identified seven common benefits of the shared approach:
Attracts all forms of community capital: “It enabled us to not just attract outside capital, but to attract outside capital and leverage other capital.”
Creates tangible and intangible improvements: “Stellar leads to other impacts that are not just dollars and cents.” “Allows agencies to invest in change in small rural communities.” “It brings community residents together for a defined purpose in this case improving downtown, creating jobs, affordable housing available for seniors, I’d say bringing people together for defined goals.”
Expedites projects: “The overall value of Stellar is to help communities move projects in three years that they would not have been able to move in three years. It would’ve been more like 10 to 12 years.” “.. I think it allows us [being the city, the community] to complete plans [that we were going to do anyway] that would take 10 to 15 years; it took that possibility and allowed us to be able to do that within 3 years. That’s a huge game changer. And that’s just to do the projects that we want to do. Then there is the ripple effect because as we start these projects that we have proposed and decided upon other projects will come about because these projects have occurred and I think that’s the biggest effect. It just changes the game from a 15 year plan to a 3 year plan.”
Forces long-term and comprehensive planning efforts: “The value of Stellar is that it does force you to look at long-term planning. It forces you to bond together different issues in your community with different organizations into one fluid mission.”
Enables the cultivation of relationships: “It [ISCP] does force you to cultivate relationships among leadership organizations in the community to accomplish this goal we simply couldn’t [accomplish] without.”
Provides a basis for project implementation and community involvement: “It [ISCP] did allow us and present us with a menu to take our plans and put them on paper and then make them more specific. It served as a good base for moving forward and implementing. If we had not done Stellar those plans would not have been formally presented to the community and what Stellar did was give us buy-in of the community…We really got the community fired up and excited.”
Improves agency relationships and processes: “It [ISCP] allows agencies to rethink their paperwork process and streamline process.”
Attracts all forms of community capital: “It enabled us to not just attract outside capital, but to attract outside capital and leverage other capital.”
Creates tangible and intangible improvements: “Stellar leads to other impacts that are not just dollars and cents.” “Allows agencies to invest in change in small rural communities.” “It brings community residents together for a defined purpose in this case improving downtown, creating jobs, affordable housing available for seniors, I’d say bringing people together for defined goals.”
Expedites projects: “The overall value of Stellar is to help communities move projects in three years that they would not have been able to move in three years. It would’ve been more like 10 to 12 years.” “.. I think it allows us [being the city, the community] to complete plans [that we were going to do anyway] that would take 10 to 15 years; it took that possibility and allowed us to be able to do that within 3 years. That’s a huge game changer. And that’s just to do the projects that we want to do. Then there is the ripple effect because as we start these projects that we have proposed and decided upon other projects will come about because these projects have occurred and I think that’s the biggest effect. It just changes the game from a 15 year plan to a 3 year plan.”
Forces long-term and comprehensive planning efforts: “The value of Stellar is that it does force you to look at long-term planning. It forces you to bond together different issues in your community with different organizations into one fluid mission.”
Enables the cultivation of relationships: “It [ISCP] does force you to cultivate relationships among leadership organizations in the community to accomplish this goal we simply couldn’t [accomplish] without.”
Provides a basis for project implementation and community involvement: “It [ISCP] did allow us and present us with a menu to take our plans and put them on paper and then make them more specific. It served as a good base for moving forward and implementing. If we had not done Stellar those plans would not have been formally presented to the community and what Stellar did was give us buy-in of the community…We really got the community fired up and excited.”
Improves agency relationships and processes: “It [ISCP] allows agencies to rethink their paperwork process and streamline process.”