Project 17 took its next step toward acquiring a significant grant aimed at cultivating strong leaders in the state’s poorest and most vulnerable region.
Representatives for Project 17, an economic development initiative spanning 17 counties in southeast Kansas, spent 90 minutes Thursday in Wichita making their case for $1 million worth of leadership training from the Kansas Leadership Center.
Project 17 was one of seven finalists vying for a grant from the KLC, a nonprofit helping people, communities and other nonprofits throughout Kansas foster civic leadership through a host of programs.
The grant will provide intense, multi-day leadership training for working groups as well as any expenses participants incur during the process such as food, lodging and travel. KLC hopes to train as many as 400 people during a two-year span.
“Having adequate leadership capacity across the region is essential if we want to make progress in improving economic and health conditions,” said David Toland, Allen County’s representative on Project 17’s executive steering committee. “A central idea behind the
leadership grant is to train everyday people to use civic leadership skills both to help solve the problems that plague our region, and to help build on and accentuate the many positive attributes of Southeast Kansas.”
More than 100 prospective organizations had showed interest in the grant before KLC chose finalists.
Representatives from each group were in Wichita Wednesday and Thursday for what Toland described as “a straight forward” conversation about how Project 17 intends to use the KLC resources in a way that has the most impact on the region’s economic and health conditions.
“THE INTERVIEW went as well as it possibly could,” said Toland, one of four representing Project 17 Thursday in Wichita. “We were well prepared but they asked tough question and really insightful questions that sort of cut to the crux of what we’re trying to do.”
Ed O’Malley, KLC president and chief executive officer, said finalists were asked to lay out their purpose, vision and goals. They also were quizzed on how progress toward goals might be measured.
“That question is a big one because we know that what gets measured gets done,” he said. “We wanted to explore with the (finalists) how they imagine measuring progress on the issue they care about. This is the first time we’ve done something quite like this so we want to make sure it’s successful so we can’t take our chances on an organization that might not have all their ducks in a row.”
State Sen. Jeff King, one of the four southeast Kansas legislators who conceptualized the Project 17 initiative, said its working goals are easily measured, both long and short term.
“The function of the group itself is a short-term measurable goal — the ability to bring in people from diverse socioeconomic, geographic and professional backgrounds,” said the Independence Republican. “The long-term goals flow through our two main points of emphasis — economy and health. We can measure the amount of training we’re able to do and the amount of job creation in the area. It’s very measurable.”
In regards to specifying methods for reaching goals like bringing poverty numbers down and health conditions up, Toland said because the revitalization efforts are intended to be from the bottom up rather than top down, it was too early to give concrete examples — and that’s not a bad thing.
“The problem isn’t just that our health is poor or that jobs are disappearing. These are more likely symptoms of larger problems, rather than the cause of the problem,” he said. “We have a lot of listening and learning to do, and we need as many people actively participating in this process as we possibly can.
“If we’re fortunate enough to have KLC working with us, we have a much better shot at this effort succeeding,” Toland added.
