Community Trust Project Selection Report

On February 9, 2014, thirty-eight (38) community residents (including three (3) resident Community Trust Trustees), six (6) other Community Trust Trustees, and nineteen (19) volunteers, gathered at the Clarkston Community Center to continue the process of determining an Education project to fund from the Clarkston Community Trust.  Residents met in small, generally randomized groups to prioritize the following five (5) Education projects proposed by the Trustees (based on ideas generated by participants at community Next Steps meetings held last September, October, and November):

• Clarkston After-School Collaborative
• Clarkston READS! Literacy Campaign
• Clarkston Mentorship Project
• Clarkston Youth Leadership Project
• Clarkston Employment Clinics Project

Descriptions of these projects are set forth on the attached Appendix A.   Only residents were allowed to select a project.  To select a project, resident participants utilized a process of deliberation and numeric (i.e., forced ranking) prioritization.  Non-resident guests were provided an opportunity, apart from the resident group, to work through the same process so that they might understand the process in which residents were engaged.

Residents prioritized the five projects based on the criteria of need, equity, impact, feasibility, and sustainability. The definition for each criterion is provided on the attached Appendix B. For each criterion, individuals in each group shared with their group their personal project preference(s) and the reasons for choosing such preference(s). Groups recorded participant comments on flip charts, which comments are shown on the attached Appendices C and D.   Appendix C references participant comments arranged by small group.  Appendix D references participant comments arranged by criteria.

Individuals in each group then ranked the projects from 1 to 5 for each criterion, with a “5” being considered the “best” score or rank. CDF aggregated group scores and computed weighted averages for each project based on the criteria referenced.

Through this deliberation and prioritization process, residents chose the Clarkston After-School Collaborative as the Trust project for 2013-14. Ranking results for all projects are as follows:

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