As communities and organizations consider developing an action plan for the future, there are three basic questions that should drive the process:

• What do we want to preserve?
• What do we want to change?
• What do we want to create?

These questions are addressed in a new workbook titled Vision to Action: Take Charge Too. Published by the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, Vision to Action provides a basic guideline for helping communities and organizations develop a vision, and an action plan for accomplishing that vision.

“A growing number of communities in the Midwest are relying on visioning processes to plan for their future,” says Gary Green, professor in the department of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-chair of the Vision to Action design team. “This workbook presents the best practices of visioning and a model for linking visioning to action plans.”

Vision to Action: Take Charge Too begins by providing a guideline for organizing the process and preparing for a community workshop. Purpose, values, vision and action are the focus of the workshop where participants develop vision statements. Next is an outline of basic steps that communities take to develop an action plan for accomplishing the vision, and then to implement the plan. Guidelines are also provided for how to keep the process going.

Additional information that may be useful at various stages of the visioning process is also included. A chapter on community assessment discusses various methods for examining community trends. Another chapter provides rationale for monitoring and evaluating the visioning process, and offers strategies and examples as well.

Vision to Action is written for practitioners and educators working directly with communities or organizations and focuses on three major objectives:

• Use a participatory process to engage the entire community or organization rather than just leaders.
• Develop a community action plan identifying what will be done, who will do it, and when it will be accomplished.
• Focus on the future, emphasizing what the community or organization wishes to preserve, change or create.

A conference held in Chicago, Illinois, on February 26-28, 2001, introduced the workbook to teams of Extension staff and their partners in community development, including community leaders, agency staff and others. States sent teams that would learn together and plan together how to use the program in their home states.

In addition, “The conference was an opportunity for community development practitioners to share their thinking about and experience with visioning and to develop networks that will continue to improve community development processes in the future,” said Green.

Illinois, Minnesota and North Dakota have already held workshops to introduce the Vision to Action program in their states. Additional workshops are planned throughout the North Central region for this summer and fall.

Copies of Vision to Action: Take Charge Too are available for $25 from the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, (515) 294-9768, khetland@iastate.edu.