What We've Learned

The broad goal of the Mid South Delta Initiative partnership between communities and the Foundation is to improve the capacity of Delta communities to create their own economic opportunities, which will lead to positive economic impacts especially for vulnerable citizens.

Thus, the essential strategies will blend process and projects to

• build capacity for individuals, organizations, and coalitions;
• build new levels of "social capital" and civic infrastructure grounded in inclusive community leadership;
• leverage existing assets and resources already present in the region by stimulating new partnerships and new investments; and to
• support new locally-controlled economic development approaches.

Since the Initiative first started in 1996, the Kellogg Foundation has committed to use MSDI as a learning laboratory for placed-based change. An important aspect to track and analyze the various learnings was to establish a multi-level approach to evaluation, one that would help communities track their projects as well as their collaboration experience.

Since the Mid-South Delta Initiative is a long-term, place-based change effort, many of the strategies and networks will evolve through experiment and reflection. In order to strengthen our learning community, we have included this page that provides insights gained by MSDI evaluators who distill the experiences of team members as they face new challenges and discover innovative solutions. This page is a living document that we will continue to add to as the initiative expands. Our first learnings were generated from our initial strategy: strengthening communities. We hope that visitors to this page may learn from our experiences and use these insights to aid them in their own community-building endeavors.

COMMUNITIES MUST BE READY FOR CHANGE
If a community is not ready no amount of coaching will get them ready. The community has to be receptive to coaching. Readiness is apparent from various factors. For example, the team must have a member with the organizational skills needed to convene people. This person must possess the logistical skills to assemble and engage people in a meaningful way, allowing them to lead but enabling them to keep focused. The capacity to behave in this manner results from natural talent that can be enhanced by effective coaching. Signs that a team is not ready are often reflected in its proposal that may be administrative heavy, lack evidence of collaboration with community organizations, and lack clarity of goals and objectives.

SOMETIMES YOU TAKE STEPS FORWARD AND SOMETIMES YOU TAKE STEPS BACKWARD
WKKF funds serve as patient capital that has allowed the MSDI communities to cultivate patience with respect to achieving outcomes and also the process involved in doing so. At the regional and national levels, WKKF has learned that it takes patience, trial and error to refine the strategies. Moving from the conceptual phase to implementation has proved challenging but progress continues to be made.

THE CORE COMPETENCIES ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE SUCCESS OF MSDI
The MSDI community-building strategy was built upon nine core principles that were co-created by community partners and MSDI staff:

Traditional organizational skills have to be brought to bear within the framework of shared vision, shared leadership and collaboration. The capacity of organizations to exhibit the core competencies and to develop these within leaders and members is not easy. For example, where shared leadership does not flourish usually it is usually because a dominant personality or dominant organization has overwhelmed the team in question. This situation is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, dominance is needed to drive progress, but, on the other hand, others need to be allowed to take ownership of the program activities and to ask questions. Otherwise, dominance by one organization can lead to no accountability. Thus, dominance must be exercised within the MSDI framework. The Core Competencies and good management must coexist otherwise teams will not achieve stated goals although they may achieve other significant accomplishments.

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL
All aspects of the Initiative that operated with a well-defined plan tended to do better with respect to their objective goals. This lesson was especially true with respect to the first round of funded communities. It is interesting to note that one characteristic shared by some of the partners' projects is that they are led by established social action agencies that have had a history in developing and implementing programs. Although each of the projects required and received technical assistance, at least the project leaders, and in many cases others on the team, were acquainted with the program cycle, including the planning phase. They appreciated the importance of clearly defining goals and objectives at the outset of the planning process, and had had some experience doing the same.

In contrast, other projects encountered difficulty in implementing their programs due to problems with program planning. Some partners attempted to shortcut the planning phase only to have to revisit the drawing board as they attempted to implement their programs. One team did not have a history of program planning and management. Thus, as is often the case with first time project managers, enthusiasm "to get to work" led them to jettison planning in favor of full implementation. Another team faced similar challenges that were compounded by a lack of consensus early on relative to the project's goals and objectives.

PRIOR ORGANIZATIONAL STRENGTH IMPACTS THE ABILITY TO ENGAGE IN SHARED LEADERSHIP AND COLLABORATION
Round-One and Round-Two teams differ in the way they were selected. All Round I teams had some prior relationship with WKKF. Lead organizations were asked to assemble teams and lead the projects. As a result, there was limited shared leadership and collaboration and team building was secondary to the achievement of the project goals. E.g. decision-making has not been a shared function. Inability to demonstrate these principles was reduced in instances where the lead organization already had a strong vision and mission prior to MSDI and /or a strong leader. The experiences of these teams show that while often necessary to jumpstart the project over time, a strong leader who continues to dominate the process is at odds with the MSDI shared leadership principle. Such individuals must learn to step back and delegate once the project is running.

HISTORY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN VARIOUS GROUPS IN THE COMMUNITY GREATLY INFLUENCES RESPONSE TO EFFORTS
Organizations with a history of being a civil rights defender have had difficulty making collaborations with the white community. Initially, most of the community teams were male dominated and had not focused on engaging youth. However, most of the communities have not focused on areas that would attract youth, e.g. entrepreneurs - most youth are not entrepreneurs.

THE COACHING COMPONENT IS AN INDISPENSABLE PART OF THE MSDI MODEL
The coaching model works - community teams benefit from having a sole source of ongoing TA who can access additional resources for the team as necessary. On-going technical assistance and coaching are pivotal to the development of a trusting relationship between coaches and their communities. As mutual trust develops so does the candor of the exchanges between the parties. This eventually allows coaches to offer constructive criticism and advice that might not be heeded if communities only saw them as experts who 'parachute in" once in a while to dispense advise. Trust also permits for frank exchanges without the parties involved taking remarks personally.

PROCESS IS MORE DIFFICULT THAN OUTCOMES
Building sustainable team capacity to embody the MSDI core principles is more difficult than merely achieving project outcomes. Teams tend to focus on discrete actions, e.g. making loans or establishing job-training programs. These are tangible, easily measurable activities. In contrast, practicing collaboratively or promoting civic participation are relatively vague and abstract. In order to pay attention to these and similar processes that are mandated by the MSDI core principles, teams need to set aside time from what they consider to be their "work" and engage in self-reflection. Resistance to this activity is somewhat diminished when teams realize that paying attention to way they operate is also part of their work and that how they work is a greater determinant of long term sustainability than the attainment of discrete project outcomes.

MONEY ALONE IS NOT THE SOLUTION
MSDI staff at all levels have learned that merely providing communities with money is not enough. Communities need capacity building on how to use what they receive in a way that brings them the greatest benefit. Capacity building in the form of technical assistance whether through hands-on coaching, networking or any of the other mechanisms used in MSDI maximizes the value and benefit derived from WKKF investments. To illustrate, communities that previously lacked access to the Internet have gained accessed through the use of WKKF funding to purchase the necessary hard and software. However, their ability to use this equipment, and hence the value of WKKF's investment, has been enhanced by the workshops and other resources provided through MSDI's technology impact service.

A PHYSICAL WKKF PRESENCE IN THE REGION IS KEY
Having a WKKF program officer in Pine Bluff makes a tremendous difference. First and foremost, it is a clear indication of the level and intensity of WKKF's commitment to the Delta. It sends the message that WKKF intends to work with the people of the Delta rather than on or for them. Second, it provides WKKF with an invaluable vantage point from which to observe and experience first hand some of the challenges faced in the Delta. The WKKF officer in Pine Bluff, Arkansas is able to see, smell, and feel the Delta for herself and to work with other stakeholders to use this information to improve the program. In the words of one community member, WKKF's physical presence in the Delta shows that "Kellogg came to listen and stayed to work." Finally, communication between the Foundation and the Delta community has been facilitated and enhanced by having a readily accessible Foundation "face" in the region.

LEARNING COMMUNITIES ARE INVOLVING ALL MSDI STAKEHOLDERS
Originally, one desired outcome of MSDI was the creation of learning communities involving residents who gained capacity to control their own economic development. This is happening. Communities are beginning to see each other as resources and to call on each other for support. As a result, during one of the 1999 cross sites, communities members began to coalesce into networks to jointly explore issues such as transportation and agriculture which may not be addressed in MSDI's Strategy III.

It is also important to note that learning communities are forming elsewhere. An unintended but welcome outcome is that the coaches now represent a learning community in and of it self. As the coaches' monthly telephone conferences revealed similarities between the communities and resulted in knowledge exchange and mutual problem solving, it has rapidly became clear that coaches need to and do share learning.