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Joe Supervielle:

Welcome to Voices in Local Government, an ICMA podcast to share success stories, ideas, and lessons for local government leaders and their staff. Today's episode is on successful community engagement for small cities and towns. With us is Sue Lessard, town manager of Bucksport, Maine, and Jane Lafleur, senior director of market development for Community Heart and Soul, a resident-driven process that engages the entire population of a town to identify what they love most about their community, what future they want for it, and how to achieve that. Thanks for joining us today.

Jane Lafleur:

Thanks.

Sue Lessard:

Thank you.

Joe Supervielle:

Also on the small community topic, ICMA's free resource, Strategic Planning in Small Communities: A Manager's Manual is linked wherever you're listening to this podcast and I think fits in nicely with what we're going to talk about today.

So to start off with, Sue, can you tell us about Bucksport, including maybe some of the struggles of a small town that others across America go through, how this process with Community Heart and Soul maybe helped overcome some of those and just your leadership position with the town there.

Sue Lessard:

Thank you. Bucksport is a town of approximately 5,000 people located the mouth of the Penobscot in Maine. It is the former home of a paper mill, which was here for nearly 80 years, which closed abruptly in 2014, taking with it 500 jobs and 40% of the town's valuation, and, I might add, a lot of the town's identity. I came to Bucksport in August of 2015, hired as an interim to put the wheels back on the bus. The community, it had a big shock. It had been through two very short term town managers. It had a lot of people in the community who wanted to help and who wanted to make things better, but there was little direction.

And shortly after I got here, I was approached by a resident with a book, a book about Heart and Soul. He had been to a conference and had heard a presentation and he thought I should read it and I did. It outlined a process by which a community could get input from all the voices in the community without the heavy thumbprint of government on that process because it's a grassroots bottom-up process. And so I invited Jane Lafleur to come to a council meeting and I also invited, it was in November, an election season, and I invited all the other candidates who were running for council to come and listen to this presentation as well about bringing Heart and Soul to Bucksport as a way for us to find an identity forward from the mill.

I'm happy to say that the council voted unanimously to support that effort and initially, the plan was that our economic and community development director would act as a staff person for that. And shortly after starting that, it did not work. His commitments were too great in other areas so the town committed funds, $20,000, for a part-time staff person for Heart and Soul to do the organizational portions of it. And subsequent to that, as it got near the end of the process, appropriated another $8,000 to finish it.

But when I say the town didn't have a thumbprint on it, the person who was the staff person was not a government person. And the 100 or more volunteers who organized block parties and found a storefront on Main Street from which Heart and Soul could operate et cetera, were not government employees. They were citizens, new ones, people who had been here a long time. It really involved a wide and diverse cross-section of our community.

The process was long and the work was hard. That's not to discourage anyone because the outcome of the hard work is pretty amazing. We started ours in 2016. It's now 2023, and I can tell you that Heart and Soul is still firmly imprinted on Bucksport. The value statements that were derived from the hundreds of stories that were collected from our residents are posted on our town council wall and they act as a lens through which the council puts projects and proposals that come to the town. It's posted in the lobby of our town office so that anyone coming in can understand what the values of the community are in one place.

Further, some of our policies also include Heart and Soul as a requirement. Any outside agency of the town applying for funding has to show how the values of their organization are consistent with the Heart and Soul values of Bucksport that have been established. And so it's the underpinning of what we do, but the biggest thing that it's done for us is change the way this community interacts with each other.

Heart and soul is entirely about approaching things from the positive. What do we like? What do we want to keep? Once you start down a negative road, there's no way but down. But approaching it as for what do we like, what opportunities does this challenge present, is completely different. And the result is that even when we discuss difficult topics as a town and as a town council, people are civil. I have a widely diverse council, all the way to the left, all the way to the right, and they have robust discussions, but never are they rude to each other. Never are they personal about the topics that they talk about. And we learned that from Heart and Soul. I think it's fair to say that I probably reinforce that on occasion, and I've heard our mayor on more than one occasion when someone starts down a different road to say, "I'd take a look to your left, the statements on the wall. That's who we are," which brings people back to center if they start to get off on a different road.

Joe Supervielle:

You said the positive path, I think, is the key here and we're going to expand on that. You mentioned how it's a difficult process, but I don't think our audience of local government leaders, that's not unusual or they're not going to shy away from that, especially when the payoff can be there. We'll get into a few of the specifics about how the program can work to hopefully make it a little bit less daunting or challenging for those interested in replicating it.

So Jane, you've dedicated your career to city and town planning. Local government leaders like Sue, I don't think they often need convincing that community engagement is that important for all the reasons Sue just brought up, especially bringing people together. The question isn't really why it's important. It's how to do it, because there's different ways people often bring up, "Well, hey. We got to do social media and we got to be digital, especially with COVID and digital town hall meetings. That's all great, but it's still difficult. It's still hard to get, especially as Sue said, maybe those people in the middle who don't have big gripes from either end of the spectrum. They're just going about their lives. It's hard to get them involved. So what's been your experience over these years actually making that happen through this program?

Jane Lafleur:

You know what? Thanks for asking. I've been involved with Community Heart and Soul for quite a few years, since about 2008. I've also been planner and a community development person. And Heart and Soul is different. It involves people from the bottom up, as Sue mentioned, from the grassroots. It's resident driven. It's not run by the leaders or government. And we like to say that people always talk about bring more people to your table. Well, in Heart and Soul, we like to say we take the table out to people and there are many different tables. In the Heart and Soul process, the Heart and Soul volunteer team meets with community members in all different venues, whether it's at the corner store or in the parking lot at a potluck dinner or in a neighborhood or in the library or wherever it might be, wherever people gather. That's where the Heart and Soul team meets with community members and ask them questions about what do they love about that community? What would make it a better place? What ideas do they have for the future?

And when you start, as Sue mentioned, when you start asking people those positive questions that can generate positive responses, and all of those stories, hundreds and hundreds of stories or interviews are collected and recorded and tabulated, then certain common themes come out of all of those stories that become those Heart and Soul statements that Sue mentioned, the value statements, because we find that people have a lot more in common than we might have thought. People from opposite sides of town where you thought you were on opposite ends of the political spectrum perhaps, care deeply about their community and they have a lot more in common about what they care about and what they love about.

So it's those kinds of things that bring people together and trust is built as a result of that listening, gathering the stories, listening to those stories, sharing those stories back into the community. That's all part of the process that's set out by community Heart and Soul. And it builds not only a set of Heart and Soul statements that can guide future decision-making as Sue mentioned, but it also results in an action plan that can be implemented by government and by organizations and community groups. So we often hear stories from folks. People might say, "I love this community. I love to get out on the river, but I wish there were more public access points," as an example. So maybe one of the action items is let's start looking for more public access points and get funding for those places where people can access open space or natural areas or water bodies.

That's just one example of the kinds of things that come from the community. And then the governmental leaders know that they can make investment decisions or policies decisions based on what people really care about because we heard it from the people. The Heart and Soul team feeds all that information back to the community, back to government, back to the leaders, and also keeps it so different organizations can take charge of parts of that action plan.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay, so you said the team actually goes and meets real people in real places. Is it exclusively in person? Is there a digital aspect? How do you mix-

Jane Lafleur:

Yeah. It's all of the above. The in-person part is really important because that face-to-face communication is important and that sitting down at someone's kitchen table and listening to their story builds a relationship. So that's very, very important. But we also coach the communities on other ways to reach out to people, whether it's having a social media account where people can ask questions and respond there on a Facebook page or Instagram. It's also sometimes a town's website to get information or having different places that people can submit their information. So Sue, for instance, mentioned the storefront, the empty storefront on Main Street downtown. They called it the Heart and Soul headquarters, and that became a drop in place for people to come in and interview.

Joe Supervielle:

They can just show up and tell their story.

Jane Lafleur:

Yeah, show up and tell their story. I remember one event where they had a town parade, but after the parade, people dropped in and got a cup of coffee or an ice cream or whatever and could leave their story and give their input that way. So it's this dynamic process that takes a couple months to make sure you're gathering data from everybody. And one of our principles is involve everyone. So the Heart and Soul team, one of the very first things they do is they identify who lives, works and plays in that community, and then they identify the strategies for reaching those people.

So if there are different groups, how do you reach the young family member who's working all day long and with their family at night? How do you reach them? They may not be going out to a town council meeting or a select board meeting, but you find ways to reach them. Or how do you reach the older person that is home bound, or whatever the different demographics of your community might be? So it's a way of not just responding to the loudest voice in the room, the person that always comes to the meetings and is always there, but it's making sure that you collect information from everybody in your community, involving everyone.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay. And one of those questions, is it fair to say it's not just the what, what do you like, what do you want, but it is trying to get into the why to actually figure out-

Jane Lafleur:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's important because you can say you love downtown, but why is it that you love downtown? What is it specifically about your downtown that makes it special to you? And that becomes part of the Heart and Soul statement because that gives the elected leaders the opportunity to strengthen those things that people care most about. Our other principle is focusing on what matters, and that's where you hear what matters most to people by listening to them, by gathering their story, by asking deeper questions of the person you're interviewing.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay. I can hear the research people or the type who do the surveys for a living start asking maybe, "Well, what about quantitative data versus qualitative?" If you're getting anecdotal stories or a lot of details, is there a tool ultimately that collects, captures and then makes this sortable to actually spit out some numbers at the end of the day?

Jane Lafleur:

Yes. When people collect stories, they're tape recorded and then numbers of people, two or more people, listen back to every story. They tag that story for the themes that come out, and the themes then are quantitatively tallied so that the Heart and Soul statement is developed around that theme.

The importance of a story gathering process or an interview process is you have a two-way conversation. So it's better than a survey that says, "Do you like A, B, C, D or E," because you can't say why, or you can't probe deeper. You can say why, but you may not get a deeper response or a two-way conversation. So this is a way our Heart and Soul coaches work with the community to teach them how to pull the data out of those stories and to turn it into a Heart and Soul statement.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay. So Sue, let's go back to your specific example there. You did bring up, again getting into how do you actually execute on this. So you brought up how the economic development director was volunteered to handle this, but as we all know, everyone's wearing multiple hats and the resources aren't always there. So did you end up having to make another hire, or how did you resolve that long term? Because it seems like it's been going for a few years now. So what was the first step and then also how did you sustain it over multiple years?

Sue Lessard:

We started with a half empty main street and we hired an economic development director and then we chose Heart and Soul and quickly realized that our economic development director couldn't fill half empty Main Street and do justice to the Heart and Soul program. So literally, we just provided money to the Heart and Soul group that was organizing in order for them to pick a staff person. And we were very careful not to taint this process. What I didn't want was for people in the community think to think that this was just one more government we're-here-to-help-you kind of thing, which isn't what it was and it was free of so purposely. I didn't attend any of the Heart and Soul functions that were held where they were collecting stories or asking people for input.

I'm a community leader. I'm hired by the council to... When I go somewhere and they're going to talk, people look to me for the answer, and this was not the right place for that. What they needed was freedom to express whatever they wanted about their community without feeling like there was a right or wrong answer being judged by somebody that was in government. That providing money piece was really our contribution, that and background support, helping them find things that they needed while they were working through their process. The storefront, who's got one that we might be able to use? How are we going to pay for the things? Where might we find some grants? Those are questions that the town provided answers to, but that's the back shop, so to speak. The front shop, which was the public facing out in organizing block parties and cookouts and concerts and all that, that was entirely the group. And when I say it's hard work, it's because there's a lot of time, effort, and energy involved in collecting these stories, involved in figuring out who is in your community.

We learned a lot about who we were through this process that we didn't know because nobody had ever gone through a process where they really sat down and tried to figure out what are all the groups that are here? And it's everything from the three guys that meet at McDonald's every morning for coffee on up. They're all representative of a segment of our community that has a voice.

Results, more than what I've already mentioned are that we have more public participation in our local government. We had six people run for two council seats recently and not because people are mad, because people want to be involved and they're happy about the direction their community is going in. In addition, this is the best economic development tool you could have. And the reason is funders want to know if you're applying for grants, if what you're applying for is if you're going to do it and if you have follow through. Heart and Soul's a great example of that.

But people looking to develop or to locate a business, they want to know when they come to your community, if their business is going to be accepted, if what they want to do in your community is going to be supported. If you've done Heart and Soul, you know the answers to those questions. And so it doesn't turn into what it does in many places, which is a disaster when you have somebody applying to do something. What we do when we get those kind of applications is just say, "This isn't consistent with what this community has expressed as it's values." It's not consistent with that. It doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, but it's bad for here. It's not going to go well if you try and make that application, and businesses respect that.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, they want to know.

Sue Lessard:

They appreciate that. They want to know ahead of time. It saves them all the legal haranguing and bad publicity and all sorts of things if you can just say we know the answer to that. It gives us a leg up on grant applications and things. So Jane, you were-

Jane Lafleur:

Yeah. I want to add many other communities have had the same experience where because of Heart and Soul, they're able to demonstrate to a grantor that that project has strong public support. We had a community where the hospital was located just outside the downtown and the hospital employees, who were part of the Heart and Soul process said, "We want to be able to walk safely to the downtown during our lunch hour." There was not a connected sidewalk and they had to go down in a gully to get to the downtown and it wasn't safe and it was a pretty high speed road.

So as a result, the town went to the Department of Transportation and proposed a sidewalk and sidewalk funding, and they were able to prove that dozens and dozens and dozens of hospital employees and other people that lived in that neighborhood were supportive of this project and they got the grant funding. And indeed, they got grant funding for other sidewalks that connected a grocery store to the downtown and so forth. So it's a great way to build and demonstrate public support for those kinds of grant applications that may be from government to a state agency or department of transportation or something like that because you've heard it and you've demonstrated right from the people.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah. So the businesses are more likely to invest if it's shown that this is likely to work and it's needed, it's wanted. And it seems like that would also increase the chances that a council would vote for something if they have some actual data and some input on the front end that this is wanted. Sue, can you talk to us about the infamous manager council relations, which is such a big topic with the ICMA crowd. It's not always easy, but if you have that information, it can help them make decisions.

Sue Lessard:

Absolutely. I've been in public management... This is my 42nd year. Generally speaking, your most likely way to fill a room is to make people mad. Previously, it was hard to engage people on positive topics. It's why when you do comp plans, it's hard. You're pulling people out of the wall to get them to participate. But since Heart and Soul, that isn't the case. This positive impact has drawn more people out and the results are that the increased participation and input gives the council more confidence in the decisions they're making. They consistently get more feedback than just the same three people that are there all the time. People are more comfortable in approaching their community leaders, their elected officials on topics, and they're much more willing to just come to a council meeting and stand up and talk, which wasn't always the case, as I said, unless you made them angry.

Now, we get a consistent 15 to 25 people at a meeting, even when there's nothing on the agenda that is in the least bit controversial. People say to me, "I come just because I want to know what's going on."

Joe Supervielle:

The audience, let's say they're convinced. They want to take the next step. Jane, can you tell us about the model itself, the timeline to implement it, a little bit more about the coaching aspect of this? Who are these coaches? How do you find them? How do you hire them? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no charge for the model itself.

Jane Lafleur:

Right? There's no charge for the model-

Joe Supervielle:

It's more of like a-

Jane Lafleur:

Yep.

Joe Supervielle:

Funding and then matching the funding. So give us more.

Jane Lafleur:

So the first thing to do would be to check out our website, communityheartandsoul.org. You'll see place to sign up to download our intro book. That would be the first thing to read just so you have a little bit of more background than you're getting today. It is a four-phase process. It's resident driven, so it does take a team of local volunteers, people that care about the community that are willing to get involved and to be the core team for this process.

The other piece is that there are people that are involved in different pieces so they can come and go. I'll tell a quick story. One of the towns I worked with had a young woman who had a couple kids and she didn't have time to serve on a comprehensive planning committee or a planning board, but she could get involved in Heart and Soul because she could do smaller, discreet pieces like take photographs or post things on social media or collect stories at the playground while her kids were playing. There is a core team, but there are ways that dozens of other people can get involved in Heart and Soul along the way.

As we mentioned, there's no charge to use the model. There are some costs involved, but it really ranges depending on how the community sets it up. We really want you to hire a Heart and Soul coordinator, and that's what Sue was talking about, the money that Bucksport set aside to hire a coordinator. It's important to have somebody that kind of pulls a team together, that takes the lead. It can be one or more shared people, job share for that task. And sometimes, it's done 100% volunteer ahead of town that had three retired women who were the volunteer coordinator and they job shared that role. Other towns hire somebody like Sue's town hired somebody part-time and had two other people pick up the other part of that. So that is a chunk of the cost and we don't get involved in how you pay or involve that coordinator. That's up to the Heart and Soul team.

The coaching is provided by one of our trained coaches around the country. We have many Heart and Soul coaches that have been trained by us. They're certified by us because they know the Heart and Soul model and they can coach the community along the way. And in some cases, those coaches are embedded in organizations like Community Foundation or Humanities Council. In some cases, there are independent contracted coaches where they would set up an arrangement with the community to provide the coaching at a cost that is negotiated between the town and the coach. But those are trained people that we can tell the community about, so they can contact that coach, or we can put them in touch with each other.

And then finally, there's an expense category. It can be anything from buying paper plates and paper cups to photocopying things, to buying the little tape recorder to tape record the stories or flip charts or sticky notes or those kinds of things. So the range of prices can be anywhere from zero, if everything is volunteer and donated, to the cost of the coach and the cost of the Heart and Soul coordinator. And then the expenses are usually under $10,000 for those kinds of materials. It's much, much less. I think it's actually about 7,000. It averages.

So it really depends on the community, the strength of the volunteer team. But the coach walks the team through the process and trains the team at each phase. It's a four-phase process. It takes 18 months to two years to get through the formal part of the process. And from that point on, like Sue mentioned in Bucksport, then you're actually practicing Heart and Soul and you're upholding those Heart and Soul statements. You're implementing your action plan. You're stewarding the heart, Heart and Soul process that you set in place after you went through those formal four phases.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay. The community Heart and Soul Seed grant program, is it that true that they offer 10,000 to communities with the population under 30,000 with the 10,000 match?

Jane Lafleur:

Yes. Thanks for mentioning that. We are offering Heart and Soul seed grants, exactly what you said. $10,000 with a $10,000 cash match to get you started. It's an online application. It's pretty easy to complete. We want to hear about your community. We want to hear why you want to do Heart and Soul. We want to know what organizations might be involved and you know what ideas you have to get this going. Make sure you have a team that's willing to do some of the work, or at least the beginnings of a team. It's a rolling application, so there's no deadline. It's as soon as you can get that together and we can work with you to make sure you understand the application, but then it's reviewed and we can do an online interview with a Zoom call, and then you're given the funds to get started.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay. And as Sue said earlier, it's not just community engagement in its own little bubble. It leads to economic development and more opportunities for the entire community there. So the application can also be found on the main webpage, communityheartandsoul.org.

Jane Lafleur:

Yes. Yep.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay.

Jane Lafleur:

And received grants.

Joe Supervielle:

And as Jane said, there's also the free intro book that can give you more information, anything we didn't cover today. And there's also an email address for questions, info@communityheartandsoul.org. Those will also be linked on the podcast page, so you don't have to Google it. Just scroll down wherever you're listening. It'll be right there. Along with what I mentioned earlier, the ICMA Strategic Planning and Small Communities: A Manager's Manual, which fits in. You want that community engagement and that information on the front end to then help with your strategic planning.

So Sue, Jane, thank you for your time today and everything you are doing for the community there in Bucksport and across Maine and across the entire country. Thank you.

Jane Lafleur:

Thank you very much.

Sue Lessard:

Thank you.

 

Episode is sponsored by

Guest Information

Sue Lessard, town manager, Bucksport, Maine

Jane Lafleur, senior director, market development, Community Heart and Soul

Episode Notes

Sue Lessard, town manager, Bucksport, Maine, tells a familiar tale of a small town struggling after a major industry closed its doors. With renewed focus on economic development but still searching for a way to reshape the town's identity, local government determined how to get out of the way when it comes to community engagement - Community Heart and Soul.

Jane Lafleur explains that it is a resident-driven process that relies on in-person interviews along with other digital methods to engage the entire population of a town. This identifies what is most loved about the community, the future the residents want for it, and how to achieve it. Local government can secure grant funding and provide the infrastructure.

The result is participation based on positives, not complaints, and real data to inform council decisions. 

Resources

Apply for a $10,000 seed grant for communities under 30,000 population

Obtain Community Heart and Soul's free intro book or email them at info@communityheartandsoul.org

ICMA's Strategic Planning in Small Communities: A Manager's Manual

ICMA's Local Government Reimagined initiative and conferences