Cherokee Preservation Foundation

To help the EBCI’s neighbors in Cherokee, Jackson, Haywood, Clay, Macon, Swain and Graham counties determine who they can call to identify and discuss collaboration opportunities for projects that may qualify for Cherokee Preservation Foundation funding, here is a directory of some EBCI tribal programs and departments. These departments and programs are included because their work has a relationship with the Cherokee Preservation Foundation’s four areas of focus: cultural preservation, economic development, creation of employment opportunities and environmental preservation.

The Cherokee Reservation Cooperative Extension is part of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension. Its primary function is to extend the educational resources of North Carolina State University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State university to the residents of Qualla Boundary, and it provides assistance in the areas of sustaining agriculture and forestry, protecting the environment, maintaining viable communities, developing responsible youth, and promoting healthy and safe families.

Cherokee Transit Services - 497-7490
Cherokee Transit Services provides residents of Qualla Boundary and other tribal lands with reasonably priced general public transportation, program transportation (e.g., transportation to and from Head Start, after-school programs and Vocational Opportunities of Cherokee) and non-emergency medical transportation services.

Cherokee Tribal Travel & Promotion - 497-5737
Cherokee Tribal Travel & Promotion provides information to prospective visitors and visitor services, and it is also responsible for advertising, promotion and special events.

Cherokee Youth Center (Boys & Girls Club) - 497-3119
The Cherokee Youth Center provides after-school programs; instruction in traditional Cherokee arts, crafts and dance; national programs from the Boys & Girls Club of America that help promote character and leadership development, and prevent behaviors that can injure young people’s health; and opportunities for members to be involved in community service projects. Membership is open to children in kindergarten through age 18.

Cultural Resources - 497-1581
Cultural Resources provides cultural resources and historic preservation services, including public education; interaction with museums, universities, other organizations and the general public; handling of requests for cultural performances, Cherokee language translation services, video productions, museum exhibits developments and research; the performance of duties in connection with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; locating, surveying and nominating significant historic sites to the National Register of Historic Places; consulting with museums, universities and government agencies; issuing and monitoring all permits involving ground disturbance on Qualla Boundary; and providing archaeological survey expertise to tribal units and members.

Education and Training - 497-7485
This department provides education and job training to members of the EBCI.

Parks and Recreation - 497-9115
The Parks & Recreation department provides EBCI members with sports and cultural programs, including (to name just a few) football, basketball, cheerleading, bicycling, exercise and weight rooms, paintball, aerobics, senior games, karate, gospel singing, benefit dinners, senior citizen events, Indian Fair events and sports clinics.

Public Utilities and Public Services - 497-1823
Among the many services that Public Utilities/Public Services provides, sanitation services and recycling education and services are most closely associated with the Cherokee Preservation Foundation’s environmental preservation focus.

Qualla Boundary Public Library - 497-1762
The Qualla Boundary Public Library provides EBCI members with books, magazines and videos; provides genealogy research assistance to local groups, schools and visitors; assists the school system with needed resources; provides computers to EBCI members with limited access opportunities; offers a meeting area for higher education students; and offers programs for youth, Vocational Opportunities of Cherokee, and elders.

Tribal Planning Office - 497-7042
The Tribal Planning Office provides the EBCI with a planning program that will enhance the quality of life for tribal members, lead to economic development programs that will produce a viable, year-round, full-service economy for the EBCI, enhance opportunities for existing businesses, and build strong neighborhood communities.

Handmade in America at www.wnccrafts.org/ is a non-profit organization that promotes the craft of handmade objects as a means of sustainable economic development in depressed communities in Western North Carolina. Handmade in America's mission is to celebrate the hand and the handmade, to nurture the creation of traditional and contemporary craft, to revere and protect our resources, and to preserve and enrich the spiritual, cultural, and community life of our region.

Asset-Based Strategies for Faith Communities is both a reflection of renewed interest in congregations as community builders and an effort to advance the effectiveness of their work. It reports the stories of a variety of recent faith-based initiatives that have increased the well being of both congregations and their communities. While these stories cover a wide range of settings and strategies, they all reflect a deep belief that the gifts and skills of congregants and local residents, combined with all of the other resources and assets of both the congregation and the community, represent the critical components of successful revitalization. Asset-Based Strategies for Faith Communities is available from ACTA Publications at www.northwestern.edu/IPR/abcd.html.

BASIC GUIDE TO OUTCOMES-BASED EVALUATION FOR NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS WITH VERY LIMITED RESOURCES

This document provides guidance toward basic planning and implementation of an outcomes-based evaluation process in non-profit organizations. It is available at www.mapnp.org/library/evaluatn/outcomes.htm

Building Capacity in Non-profit Organizations defines capacity-building as the ability of non-profit organizations to fulfill their missions in an effective manner, and examine capacity-building as it relates to the overall quality of life in the communities non-profit organizations serve. It is available at http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/building_capacity.pdf.

Building Community Collaboration and Consensus is an on-line resource guide that tells how to build community collaboration and gives examples of what good collaboration looks like. It also provides lists of grant resources and helpful fundraising hints. Visit this site at www.communitycollaboration.net/.

The new Building Community Toolkit published by the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development is out. It is a resource for youth and adult leaders, service-learning program coordinators, and anyone who is focused on generating and sustaining positive community development. It will provide help in five key areas:

A guide to building and maintaining effective partnerships between non-profits and corporations is on a Web site maintained by Coalescence, a consulting firm that helps clients in both sectors. The guide can be found at www.dowelldogood.com/tips2.html. Additional tips on this topic are available at www.indepsec.org/mission_market/Minnesota_Reception.html on a Web site maintained by the Independent Sector, a coalition of leading non-profits, foundations and corporations that are strengthening non-profit initiative.

The Volunteer Center of San Francisco provides good advice about involving community agencies as partners in your program. See the tips at www.vcsf.org/teachers/building.html.

The Center for Community Change (www.communitychange.org) is one of the nation's flagship non-profits working to build capacity and provide policy support in low-wealth communities.

What makes the difference between your collaboration's failure or success? Collaboration: What Makes It Work answers this question with an up-to-date and in-depth review of collaboration research. It is available on the Web site of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation at www.wilder.org/pubs/collab_wmiw/index.html.

The Community & Economic Development: Rural Development Clearinghouse, provided as a feature of the National Association of Counties: Projects & Programs Web site (www.naco.org/programs/), offers information about economic development, rural health, rural housing, welfare-to-work programs and education. It showcases rural success stories, includes links to publications, Web sites and datasets, and provides information about funding sources.

COMMUNITY CHANGE: HOW TO TELL AND SELL YOUR STORY – A GUIDE TO DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE MESSAGES AND GOOD STORIES ABOUT YOUR WORK

Community Change: How to Tell and Sell Your Story-A Guide to Developing Effective Messages and Good Stories About Your Work, put together by the Center for Community Change, explains and demonstrates how organizations can more effectively communicate the importance of their work through well crafted, well selected stories. The pamphlet asks: "What is a proposal, after all, but the stories of your organization, your community, your work and your needs? What is an annual report other than the story of what you did last year?" The idea behind this approach is explained in detail, and it is shown how stories "rehumanize" and make tangible sociopolitical issues that might otherwise fall on deaf (and satiated) ears. The pamphlet gives guidelines not only for selecting stories, but also for framing them in the most effective ways. Finally, the use of focus groups is discussed and recommended as a tool for measuring the effectiveness of a message once fully developed.

Community Coalitions: Putting Ideas to Work is an annotated listing of collaborative projects in smaller American cities compiled from among over one hundred grant proposals submitted to the Pew Partnership for Civic Change. These short synopses of lots of good ideas in collaborative community development programs were chosen for inclusion in this publication on the basis of their effectiveness and level of innovation. They include ideas for attaining such goals as reducing high school dropout rates; creating business, community, and school partnerships; designing career and job preparation programs; providing social service centers in schools; growing a strong and flexible workforce; and others. This is a good source for sparking ideas and creativity. For copies, contact:

The Laboratory for Community and Economic Development (LCED) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is using information technologies to expand the scope of community development practice. With the support of the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR), a package of online community development tools to enhance local development efforts is presented on the LCED homepage at www.ag.uiuc.edu/~lced/toolbox/.

Community Toolbox: Bringing Solutions to Light at http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/homepage.html offers "how-to tools" for the various facets of community development, including leadership, strategic planning, community assessment, advocacy, grant writing, evaluation, and others. Each section includes a description of the task, advantages of doing it, step-by-step guidelines, examples, checklists of points to review, and training materials. The site also offers links to other relevant Web pages and listservs and a trouble-shooting guide.

The Drucker Non-Profit Innovation Discovery Site, www.pfdf.org/innovation/index.html, aims to share lessons and discoveries contained within the hundreds of annual nominations for the Peter F. Drucker Award for Non-Profit Innovation. The Discovery Site will be revised each year to include new discoveries of innovation in a variety of areas from fund development to management, decision-making, alliances and partnerships.

Another program sponsored by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation is the Hesselbein Fellows Program, a year-long program that supports the professional development of social sector leaders who have a demonstrated record of leadership and entrepreneurial performance and who are engaged in projects or programs that demonstrate community innovation. For more information, visit www.pfdf.org/fellows/index.html.

A new report from the Institute for Educational Leadership focuses on ways for educators and community builders to forge common ground and engage each other in new ways to help improve student learning. Education and Community Building: Connecting Two Worlds provides strategies for building relationships between schools and communities and outlines suggested rules of engagement. The report identifies areas--"sticking points"--where there tend to be disconnects between schools and communities and suggests ways to overcome them. For more information, visit www.communityschools.org/combuild.pdf.

15 TOOLS FOR CREATING HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE INTERRACIAL/MULTICULTURAL COMMUNITIES: A COMMUNITY BUILDER’S TOOLKIT

15 tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities: A Community Builder's Toolkit is a publication of the Race-Democracy project at Claremont Graduate University of Claremont, CA. This 39-page publication includes effective practices for strengthening social networks and racial and cultural cooperative activity. The Toolkit is in part the result of an examination of 14 of the most effective sustained efforts by multi-cultural, interracial groups across the country. These groups, picked for their variety, different approaches, and geographic diversity, engaged in collective actions aimed at problem-solving and enrichment that create new or strengthen already existing social networks, institutions and assets resulting in new capacities for action and support, new quality of life in the community, and the renewing of democracy. The publication is available online at www.race-democracy.org/toolkit.html.

A Guide To Mapping Local Business Capacities, another in a series of community building workbooks generated by The Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, is an extremely easy to read, easy to follow guide for getting the lay of the land in one's community, in order to begin to craft community development projects. Its optimistic approach centers on first learning about the profit-making enterprises in your community and then assessing their present and potential future contributions to community building. To purchase a copy, contact:

Making Community Coalitions Work, prepared by the Harwood Group for the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, is the first of a series of research reports that address problems in smaller American cities. The project and its reports focus on issues of collaboration among public, private, and not-for-profit sectors in communities. It is based on 30 interviews with civic leaders from across America's smaller cities. The publication's strength is its concise articulation of commonly perceived areas of difficulty, and it should be noted that its focus is more on this task than on that of defining specific solutions. The report deals with subjects ranging from the fundamental, such as defining critical issues and determining the physical and social boundaries of a community, to the more intricate, such as balancing and integrating the apparently contradictory elements of continuity, flexibility, and progressiveness in coalition operations. To receive a copy of this report, contact:

NCCED is the national trade association for community development corporations. They build real community based economic development capacity, and they are a critical national voice on federal and state policy. NCCED’s Web site (www.ncced.org) includes a useful policy and legislation section that provides issues updates and letter templates for sending to members of congress and the administration.

The National Network for Collaboration features a wealth of collaboration and changes resources on its Web site (http://crs.uvm.edu/nnco/), including links to Collaboration Handbook— Creating, Sustaining and Enjoying the Journey; Assessing Your Collaboration — A Self Evaluation Tool; Collaborative Framework – Addressing Community Capacity; and Self Help Resources for Community Groups.

The center’s site features a number of valuable Nuggets and Resource Links, including The Seven Secrets of Effective Collaborative Leaders.

The Southern Growth Policies Board has developed a video and discussion guide entitled: Pathways to Prosperity - Choosing a Future for Your Community, which describes three strategies for communities to consider:

A compilation of resources that support dialogue and collaboration at the community level is featured on the Pennsylvania Community Connection’s Web site at www.communityconnectionpa.org/resource.htm.

The Pew Partnership for Civic Change at www.pew-partnership.org/index.html is a civic research organization whose mission is to identify and document promising solutions crucial to strong communities. The Pew Partnership has worked with communities to create new ways for citizens to tackle tough community issues -- at-risk youth, job creation, family health and neighborhood revitalization. These communities are demonstrating how to build trust between diverse sectors of the community to face immediate crises while engineering long-term solutions addressing the root of a problem. The site provides articles about programs and promising solutions and also highlights new publications and surveys.

How to establish and run study circles – small-group discussions that help communities address their most pressing issues – are the focus of a step-by-step guide on the Civic Practices Network Web site at www.cpn.org/tools/manuals/Community/studycircles1.html. The guide includes:

The Benton Foundation, an organization that seeks to articulate a public interest vision for the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems, has pulled together a number of tools and resources concerning building partnerships. These resources can be found at www.benton.org/Practice/Toolkit/partnerships.html.

The Rural Assistance Center (www.raconline.org) is a new national resource for rural health and human services information. Its information specialists are available to provide customized assistance, such as Web and database searches on rural topics and funding resources, linking users to organizations, and furnishing relevant publications from the RAC resource library. The RAC Web site includes searchable databases of documents and federal programs and a Congressional bill tracking feature.

Rural Community Assistance Corporation (www.rcac.org/) is dedicated to improving the quality of life for rural communities and disadvantaged people through partnerships, technical assistance and access to resources. RCAC strives to help community-based organizations and rural governments increase their own capacity to implement solutions to their problems. The site provides information on financial assistance, housing programs, training and technical support, upcoming events, publications, and more.

SOCIOECONOMIC DATA FOR UNDERSTANDING YOUR REGIONAL ECONOMY: A USER’S GUIDE

Socioeconomic Data for Understanding Your Regional Economy: A User's Guide is designed to be used by people who want to use readily available socioeconomic data to describe activities and trends in a sub-national economies, typically at a state, regional or local level. This guide helps you find the type of data you need, offers a series of specific suggestions that you might use to improve the impact of your analytic efforts, and recommends various data books and Web sites that might prove helpful. To find out how to obtain a copy of this report, contact the author at:

Sources of Socioeconomic Data for Economic Development Analysis, available at www.econdata.net/index.html, is a site with a thorough collection of 125 economic development Web resources. There are extensive links to federal agencies, especially the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The site complements the publication Socioeconomic Data for Understanding Your Regional Economy.

The Southern Rural Development Initiative (www.srdi.org) is a bottom-up intermediary -- a regional collaborative working together to dramatically increase the flow of philanthropic and development capital to the South's rural communities.

Sustainable Measures (www.sustainablemeasures.com/), put together by Hart Environmental Data, provides information about indicators of sustainable community: ways to measure how well a community is meeting the needs and expectations of its present and future members. The substance of this site is a list of several tools and areas of basic information necessary to develop an indicator appropriate to a particular task and situation. Some examples are: a list with examples that compare better indicators to poorer ones; a list of sustainable community projects in operation; and a search facility that can be accessed to search the organization's database using key words. Some other very useful features offered are a one-day training course on sustainable community indicators that can be conducted online or by downloading the PDF files. The site also lists questions commonly asked about sustainable community indicators and follows these with helpful and concise answers.

TechSoup.org (www.techsoup.org) is a comprehensive source of technology information just for non-profit organizations. Help yourself to everything inside – tools and resources, a listing of donated and discounted products, and articles and news.

THRIVING TOGETHER: CONNECTING RURAL SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Thriving Together: Connecting Rural School Improvement and Community Development, from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, is a practical guide for schools or community organizations needing tips for building effective teams, starting service-learning or entrepreneurial education projects and transforming a school into a community center. It also includes project planning worksheets and checklists, fact sheets and additional resources. Order information can be found at www.sedl.org/pubs/catalog/items/fam22.html.

TOOLS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP - CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS: A PUBLICATION ON BUILDING NEW ECONOMIES IN RURAL AMERICA

This 48-page book focuses on how rural communities can use entrepreneurship to create more and better jobs. The book is based on a national conference held by ARC in September 2000 entitled “Tools for Entrepreneurship: Building New Economies in Rural America.” The document is available online at www.arc.gov/programs/reginit/entrep.htm.

As part of the Public Broadcasting System’s Democracy Project, Working on Common Cross-cultural Communications Challenges is on the A More Perfect Union Web site at www.pbs.org/ampu/crosscult.html. The site describes six patterns of cultural difference, how to respect our differences and work together, and guidelines for multicultural collaboration.

YOUR FIELD GUIDE TO COMMUNITY BUILDING

This 100-page guide helps rural community leaders build the capacity of local citizens to take collective action for community improvement and provides practical information about how to create strong relationships and get things done. The guide may be ordered at http://www.heartlandcenter.info./publications.htm.