First Impressions Community Overview

Overview and Process
First Impressions Program

Community Program Overview and Process

Program Overview:

The First Impressions Program – Community – is designed to give you insight into the success of your local community development efforts by providing a first time visitor’s impressions of your village or city. These insights, provided to you in the form of a written report and presentation, can help to evaluate and target ongoing community planning and goal setting efforts. Your community will be paired with another, similar community that is also interested in obtaining information on the effectiveness of their improvement efforts. Each of you will identify a team of volunteers who will visit the other community anonymously and complete a survey of their impressions.

The information provided to you through the First Impressions process will help to:

· Evaluate the success of your development initiatives

· Identify how to strengthen community services

· Create an enhanced image to the outside world

· Focus your development efforts

Steps in the First Impressions Process:

A. Local Coordinator’s Responsibilities

Before beginning the program, choose a sponsoring organization or agency and an individual who can manage the process, train the team, accompany them on a visit, and prepare and deliver the final report. Specific steps are as follows:

1. Form a visitation team of 4 - 5 community volunteers. Try for diversity in this team if possible; male/female, professional/lay person, political leader/community resident. Choose persons who, because of their recognition and respect in the community, may be able to encourage the taking of survey results to the next step to actual development and implementation of strategies to improve the community.

2. Each community will have the option of developing three local questions for the survey. Ask questions that will give you information on issues of importance to your community, but are not already included in the survey. Please develop these local questions, if you choose, and provide them to your First Impressions Team contact as soon as possible so they can be included in the survey.

3. Train the visitation team on what is expected of them and acquaint them with the survey.

4. Make sure that at least one visitation team member brings a camera and takes pictures during their visit of points they want to emphasize.

5. Visit the community. Have each visitation team member fill out a survey. We suggest you make the visit experience together as a group (carpool). It makes for a more enjoyable experience and helps to ensure a better end result as well. Plan to arrive around 10:00 a.m. and leave by 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. This should allow sufficient time to complete your visit. Please refer to Volunteer Visitor Training for more detailed suggestions on your visit.

6. Fill out the Follow-up Questionnaire on the trip home.

7. Write up the survey responses in report form and attach photographs. Include the results of the Follow-up Questionnaire as an attachment. Send this report to your First Impression Team contact (see below). Design a presentation to share your results with the other community.

8. Present the survey results and your First Impressions Presentation to the other community and arrange for their presentation to you. One of the volunteer visitors should be chosen to attend the report presentation with the coordinator. Their role will be to assist the coordinator with the presentation and verify the team’s impressions.

9. Evaluate the effectiveness of the First Impressions Program and keep track of the follow-up that is generated.

B. First Impressions Team (FIT) responsibilities :

1. Provide your community with promotional materials and information listing the benefits and outlining the process of the First Impressions Program. For those who have email capability, a brochure will be sent as an attachment in Word Perfect. If you cannot receive it that way an original hard copy of the brochure, suitable for duplicating, will be sent by mail.

2. As they become available, provide the name(s) of other interested communities and provide guidance in pairing your community with a suitable program participant. Maintain schedule between communities so that final reports are available to each around the same time.

3. Provide the surveys and instructions for the visitation team. Instruct the coordinator on preparing the team for the visit.

4. Once the survey results are completed they will be put into a final report format by the coordinator and provided to the FIT for review. The FIT will suggest OSU Extension and other programs that may help the community in addressing the issues that arise from the report. These suggestions will be offered as a written addendum to the report.

5. Provide guidance to the coordinator in the preparation of a presentation to the paired community. Suggestions regarding the presentation approach and points to cover will be provided to the coordinator.

6. Conduct a follow-up survey of the sponsoring organization and program coordinator to determine the usage and long-term effectiveness of the First Impressions Program in your community.

First Impressions Team Members:

Myra Moss, Team Coordinator