As community leaders, we are always looking for ways to kick-start development and progress at the local level. Ideally, we want to generate positive impacts despite limited capacity, shoestring budgets and minimal resources. The term most often used to describe what we are looking for is “low-hanging fruit,” the obvious or easy things that can be done to achieve success or make progress toward an objective.
There is a multitude of low-hanging fruit we can “pick,” so it can be tough to determine where to direct our efforts. Sometimes the best way forward is to start with a fresh perspective and ask questions such as:
- How is our community perceived?
- What unique assets do we have to offer?
- How can we improve in the future?
A tool that is a perfect fit for communities who want the answers to those questions is a First Impressions Tour, or FIT. It’s an assessment tool developed by our team at the University of Central Arkansas that can provide a community with an unbiased, fresh perspective of its strengths and weaknesses. Using FIT, groups of community leaders will swap places for a day to complete an assessment of one another’s communities. Each group then takes their findings and shares them via a report and debrief meeting. The information gathered can be used to provide general direction for future community and economic development efforts by identifying broad categories of community assets and areas for growth. Exploring another community also allows for opportunities to benchmark and exercise R&D (rip-off and duplicate) efforts.
A FIT assessment includes information gathered through various avenues: demographic and market data, discussion with community leaders and citizens, online assessment, a driving tour, and on-the-street resident interviews. This information is compiled into a simple report that analyzes a community’s online, physical, social and economic infrastructure, and it provides a list of possible next steps. The two groups of leaders have opportunities to connect and network with one another as well.
Leaders in the cities of Prairie Grove and Harrison recently participated in a FIT assessment. The two leadership groups consisted of Prairie Grove Mayor David Faulk, Harrison Mayor Jerry Jackson, Wilson Marseilles of the Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce, Taryn Golden of the Prairie Grove Chamber of Commerce, and various business owners, city staff and residents. The groups traveled to one another’s communities during day trips, completed online searches of Harrison and Prairie Grove, participated in virtual introduction and debrief sessions, and worked with our staff at UCA to develop final reports of their findings.
Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Wilson Marseilles found that FIT assessments are beneficial because they can uncover blind spots and provide confirmation from outside experts. “At the beginning of the program we thought we would learn more about our blind spots, and while we found a couple of those, the most beneficial part of the assessment was discovering that our community has already been proactive in a lot of areas,” he said. “The FIT helped confirm the areas we should double down on, such as: downtown planning, creating a strong merchants association, hospitality/customer service training and pedestrian connectivity planning.”
Marseilles also shared that an unexpected result of participation in the FIT process was the bonding their local team experienced.
“While spending the day together, our leadership team conversed at length about the community we were discovering and our own community. The experience allowed us the opportunity to enhance the chemistry of our local community development team. Using this experience as a tool to bring our leaders together will continue to benefit us in the future, because community development is a team sport,” he shared.
Mayor Faulk described the experience as something all municipalities need to consider partaking in.
“The First Impressions Tour was a non-biased look into what a visitor sees and experiences while in our city. In this case, the visitors were professional peers with backgrounds in city planning, business and marketing. The First Impressions Tour provided insights that are invaluable to the growth of our city. We have already started incorporating the advice offered to improve the overall experience in Prairie Grove.”
A FIT assessment takes minimal funding (gas and lunch costs) and time commitment but provides high impact. The assessment can remove our blinders so we can see our community in a new and fresh way, develop new connections and uncover new opportunities.
To download the free First Impressions Tour assessment packet visit UCA’s Center for Community and Economic Development website.
Shelby Fiegel is the director of the University of Central Arkansas Center for Community and Economic Development. You can contact Shelby at [email protected] or 501-450-5269.
