Our mission, and passion, is about building successful communities and a successful region. A mission this bold can only be accomplished by working together with equally committed partners.

It makes sense, then, to focus on strengthening partners when we have the opportunity and ability.  Much of our organizational development work is focused on this goal.

Over the last year we’ve been involved in one continuing, and three new efforts.  Following is a summary

Beltrami County Balanced Scorecard.  This effort, sometimes known as strategic aligned management, is a bold initiative that will focus the County on accomplishing customer-centered outcomes, as opposed to just delivering a buffet of services. It comes at a time when all local governments are being challenged to focus their efforts, oftentimes with fewer resources.

While this effort is focused on Beltrami County government, it has the potential to provide substantial influence throughout the county community, and even in other parts of our region.

We’re proud to be part of the effort. Staff are facilitating the internal team conversations to develop the strategic approach.  This is an important effort that will change the nature of local government business in north-central Minnesota.

Park Rapids City Council Retreat.  How does a community get ready to move forward when three of your five council positions are occupied by new leadership?  Park Rapids chose to come together over a period of weeks to conduct a two part council retreat, with follow-up work with staff.   The purpose of the work was to help the council come together as a team and, after some foundational work in this area, begin to develop strategic priorities. 

The effort was facilitated by Headwaters RDC staff.

Regional Economic Alliance. Can regional leaders from12 counties in Northwest Minnesota come together and, more importantly, stick together to agree on an economic vision for the future, and then to lead change in the Region?  That is the question being answered through an ambitious effort being led by the Northwest Minnesota Foundation over the last 8 months.

The challenges are obvious – a large geography, leaders with an already full agenda, a diverse region, and a region that normally does not feel like one regional community, nor one that normally thinks about its future being collectively tied to one another.

For the Headwaters RDC, this effort is different because we have a combination participant/staff role, where we usually have an exclusive role as staff.  Although different, we welcome the opportunity to be involved in this future-building effort.  We should have a better idea of outcomes within the next 12 months.

Bemidji City Council Retreat.  The Bemidji community has not only many strategic advantages as the premier regional center in north central Minnesota, it also has some significant responsibilities.  The future of the Headwaters Region depends on a successful and robust regional center.  Bemidji’s success therefore is a matter of importance to the Headwaters RDC.

While the community is on the cusp of building a regional events center, there are many other things to accomplish in order to be the “star of the north”.  The Council came together in a retreat, facilitated by Headwaters RDC staff, to craft a process to identify outcomes in priority areas.  This benchmarking process will help the city government bring accountability for outcomes desired by its customer citizens.