The MAPPING journey begins with the formation of a community Steering Committee. This committee is responsible for working with MAPPING staff to plan the program logistics, invite participants, conduct initial marketing, and so forth. MAPPING staff provide detailed step-by-step guidelines in order to facilitate the smooth planning of the program. Prior to beginning the four visioning sessions of the program, an Orientation session is held with all of the people who plan to participate in the program. During this one-hour meeting MAPPING IIRA staff ensure that participants understand the program, begin with realistic expectations, and respond to initial questions.

The core of the MAPPING program is a series of four visioning sessions. Each session is organized around a central theme: "Where are we now?" "Where do we want to be?" "How are we going to get there?" and "Making it Happen and Keeping it Going!" During the course of this process, the participants identify high-priority goals for community economic development, develop a workable action plan, and become organized to begin to tackle the implementation.

Once the initial MAPPING sessions have been completed, participants plan and host a community-wide town meeting. With assistance from MAPPING staff, the town meeting is designed to give MAPPING participants an opportunity to present their ideas, receive public comments, and invite additional volunteers to become involved in areas of special interest.

Meet with a Local Steering Committee to discuss sponsorship, participation, and logistics for visioning sessions. Conduct a MAPPING Orientation Session, in which community members get acquainted with MAPPING and prepare the community for success. Visioning Session One: Where are we now? Look at current trends, economic assets, and historical influences in your community. Visioning Session Two: Where do we want to be? Participants identify high-priority goals for an ideal future and begin to create a shared community vision. Visioning Session Three: How do we get there? Project teams are formed and a framework for the community action plan is drafted. Action Planning Session: Making it happen! Local citizens organize for action and consider options for long-term sustainable development Community-Led Town Meeting: Keeping it going! Community gives input for mobilizing the community action plan. Community commitment keeps it going.

Other than time and motivation, there is no charge to individuals participating in the MAPPING sessions. There is, however, a community sponsorship fee that is set based on the population of the community (2000 census) and the distance from Macomb, IL. In addition to helping offset the costs of staff time, materials and preparation for the program, the sponsorship fee serves to bring additional community investment and involvement into the program. Although many communities may request that their city council funds the costs of the MAPPING program, this is strongly discouraged. Instead, we recommend that the steering committee raise donations toward the sponsorship fee through approaching local businesses, civic organizations, church groups, and the local utility company, in addition to a donation from the city council. It is crucial to the success of the program that there be widespread knowledge of and investment in the program prior to its beginning. MAPPING staff will assist in generating ideas for raising local sponsorships, although the effort is conducted by the steering committee.

Fees are set according to the following two-part formula:

Population: The minimum sponsorship rate is $2,000 for communities with populations of 1000 or less. For communities over 1000 the sponsorship increases on a per capita rate as follows:

Ultimately, anyone with a stake in the community should be able to find a niche in projects that evolve from MAPPING the Future sessions. However, to begin the visioning and planning process, 30 to 40 civic leaders and active volunteer residents are required. The success of the MAPPING program depends on this group representing a cross-section of constituent groups within the communities. In addition, this group should be made up of leaders throughout the community who will subsequently remain active in the process of implementing the action plan. These are the people who will come together to create the vision for economic development, AND, roll up their sleeves to get things done!

The MAPPING participant group should include a wide representation from as many segments of the community as possible: mayor, council representatives and elected officials, business and industry leaders, farmers, school superintendents / educators, health care providers, civic organizers, retirees, clergy, students, and an array of other interested leaders, including the local nay-sayers!

Let's start with "where": all of the MAPPING sessions are held at sites selected by the community's steering committee (i.e., preferably somewhere in the community like a civic hall, church basement, or a school).

Now the "when": a well-communicated, shared and supported vision coupled with a plan of action is the foundation upon which everything else in the community may be built in the future. Due to the importance of the MAPPING process, it is essential that everyone is rested and ready to work during the visioning and planning sessions. No matter what time of day the sessions are held, participants need to bring their energy, their creativity and enthusiasm for community development and be willing to be stretched mentally to build the future of their community.

The MAPPING program requires a significant investment of participant time and motivation. This is a program for communities with a high level of motivation and an intense desire to move proactively into the future.

Participants are expected to attend a one-hour evening Orientation session prior to beginning the program. The MAPPING program itself is typically held in four four-hour strategic visioning and planning session over the course of 8-10 weeks. The process culminates in a Town Meeting that is held approximately 4-6 weeks following the visioning sessions.

By special request, the scheduling of the MAPPING program can be somewhat flexible to meet unique needs of the community. However, the content of the MAPPING program has been developed over the last 10 years, and is felt to be the best use of time that we are able to achieve. Thus, although the scheduling of the program may be a bit flexible, the structure of the program is not. That is, we are not willing to dilute the program by doing it in fewer total hours. An example of creative scheduling, for example, is the option to meet for two full day sessions about four weeks apart in order to consolidate time away from work; or to meet for one full-day and two half days. MAPPING staff is available to discuss the various options with your community's steering committee.

This is generally people's biggest concern when they consider participating in the MAPPING process. Requesting time away from daily obligations to participate in a community service project may be new for some people. However, before you simply automatically dismiss this as a possibility, consider the following:

• The MAPPING process is a tool that local leaders and citizens can use to build consensus for planning their community's future. The program brings community leaders and other interested citizens together who are willing to commit time and energy toward discovering their vision and a plan of action to achieve it. MAPPING is a participatory approach to community decision-making. Therefore, YOUR DECISIONS will have a profound affect on the economic, social, and cultural future of the community.
• Whether you ultimately assume a leadership role in community development or not, you will come away from the MAPPING program with new skills and knowledge. For example, after the program, you will have experience in strategic visioning and goal prioritizing through the "nominal group technique". The process will also involve consensus building and teamwork. In addition, you will be introduced to a number of leadership development concepts and practices. And, of course, the participants will gain access to an abundance of information about issues affecting rural communities and your community in particular. Not only will you pick up new skills and information, you will have the added bonus of being able to apply your knowledge in a way that serves your community.

YES! In fact, most rural Illinois communities depend on part-time public officials and a cadre of volunteers to implement projects such as business retention and expansion, downtown revitalization, community beautification, tourism development, and other programs. At the same time, most communities are not sufficiently organized to manage their volunteers, to keep them motivated, and to recruit new effort as new projects emerge. Once a town meeting is held, numerous volunteers join MAPPING action teams. While these newcomers may be called on once, maybe twice, by fledgling MAPPING teams, fairly quickly they are forgotten and the "same ten people" are left doing the work. What is needed, in many cases, is a comprehensive volunteer management program designed to help community leaders mobilize, motivate, and retain volunteers to accomplish projects.

Following the MAPPING program, a training workshop will be provided on volunteerism to participating communities. Six issues are the focal points for the training: Job Development, Design, and Description; Recruitment and Retention; Screening and Interviewing; Orientation and Training; Supervision and Motivation; and Rewards and Recognition.

In addition to training on volunteerism following MAPPING, we also help communities build capacity for sustainability through a Maintaining the Momentum session. This is scheduled several months following MAPPING depending on the community's needs. In our 15 years of experience, we have observed that six to 12 months after the town meeting, when the "low-hanging fruit" projects have been accomplished and the hard work of larger economic development projects is slowly underway, excitement begins to fade and volunteer involvement may diminish. In response to this lull in momentum the Maintaining the Momentum session reconvenes MAPPING participants to discuss progress toward the community action plan, celebrate accomplishments, and renew commitment and excitement. At the MAPPING group's request this meeting will be tailored to meet specific follow-up needs of the community.

We recognize that sometimes it is difficult to motivate volunteers - but it is much less difficult to motivate people when a well-articulated and exciting vision of the future is shared and communicated with everyone. We do know that GREAT PROJECTS can make all the difference in the world! Communities exhibit new energy when residents learn creative strategies and innovative approaches for reaching their goals. The Maintaining the Momentum session helps keep the vision alive!

The MAPPING methodology was originally developed in order to bring a holistic integrated planning and decision-making process to rural communities. As such, the IIRA has developed four inter-related programs for rural community and economic development that utilize this unique methodology.

• MAPPING the Future of Your Community, the flagship program, was designed to bring together the diverse segments of a community on behalf of their overall community and economic development. Community MAPPING programs have been conducted in over 95 communities in rural Illinois.
  
  
• MAPPING the Future of Your Community's Health began in 1999 in partnership with the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Center for Rural Health, and Illinois Area Health Education Center. This specialized use of the MAPPING methodology presents opportunities for rural residents, community leaders, and health care providers to effectively work together to improve the overall health of their communities. IIRA defines community health broadly, including access and availability of health care services, health education & prevention, and environmental health. Successful projects that have emerged from the Health MAPPING process include the development of housing in order to better recruit physicians, a renewed community commitment to becoming an "Elder-Friendly" community through health care services and transportation, assisted living facilities, and so forth, and new watershed management programs.
  
  
• MAPPING The Future of Your Community's Schools was created in 1993 to bring community, economic, and school issues closer together, and has, over the years served as an excellent next step after a community-wide visioning and planning effort. Utilizing the MAPPING methodology, parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, and other local citizens are assisted to identify needs and workable goals to help their school district prepare for future demands. Forty-eight school districts have participated in the School MAPPING process. This program can be arranged through MAPPING by contract through the WIU School of Education depending on faculty availability.
  
  
• Illinois Cooperative Development Center supported by the IL Department of Agriculture and USDA-Rural Development, also draws on this unique decision-making and visioning process. By bringing together agricultural producers, bankers, business leaders, and local citizens involved with the many facets of agriculture, consensus is developed for long-range plans to add value to the local agricultural economy. Successful projects that have emerged out of this program include the development of new ethanol plants in rural Illinois, increased focus on agri-tourism, new generation cooperatives, and research on specialty crops.
  
  
• Rural Information Technology Planning Project, designed in 2002 by a multi-disciplinary team from the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs in conjunction with the MAPPING Program, has been piloted as a specialized technical assistance follow-up service for MAPPING communities interested in pursuing information technology issues in greater depth. Through a technology planning process, based on a similar methodology as the MAPPING program, three pilot communities have organized to attract businesses as their IT infrastructure and utilization improves.
  
  
• Unique applications of MAPPING: Upon special request, MAPPING staff will design and facilitate specialized applications of the strategic visioning and planning methodology for other unique purposes. Examples include projects designed to assist businesses, government agencies, or development organizations to develop organizational vision and mission priorities as well as scope of work action plans for the future of the organization. Examples include: Western IL Economic Development Partnership; Agri-Tourism Partners of Illinois; Rural Partners, Inc., Illinois Rural Recreation Development Project, Macomb Area Industrial Development Corporation, Two Rivers Arts Council and Prairie Hills Resource Conservation & Development.

Gisele Hamm, Program Manager, earned a B.S. in Agricultural Business and a M.A. in Economics from Western Illinois University. She joined the IIRA in 2003 to manage a study of brownfields in Illinois municipalities. She also worked as a rural technology specialist in the Rural Information Planning Project (RITPP), managed the Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI), and the AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program. She has published several articles in national and state outlets on brownfields and related development issues and has made numerous presentations to state and national conventions. She is currently engaged in research on rural entrepreneurship, infrastructure, brownfields, and other local government issues.

Frank Antonucci, Economic Development Specialist, began his career in rural community development by serving for two years in the Peace Corps in Honduras as a Water and Sanitation technician. He worked closely with local villagers on community health initiatives in latrine construction, water system maintenance and trash disposal. He also did a small reforestation project in conjunction with a local Middle School. Frank completed a master’s degree in Political Science with a concentration in Public Administration and served a year-long internship at the Southeastern Illinois Regional Planning and Development Commission. Frank has worked for the IIRA MAPPING program since July 2001 and is currently working towards completing his Certification in Economic Development (C.Ec.D) from the Economic Development Institute.

Christina Davis, a Peace Corps Fellow intern, is currently pursuing a master's degree in Economics from Western Illinois University. She will complete her studies in December 2006 with an M.A. as well as two post-baccalaureate certificates in “Community Development” and “African and African Diaspora World Studies.” One of Christina’s first experiences in rural community development occurred as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Zambia where she served for 27 months. She worked on a variety of projects including aquaculture, conservation farming, permaculture and girls’ empowerment. Christina received her B.A. from Smith College in Sociology and Spanish.

Sharon Herbst, Secretary for MAPPING, received her B.A. in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse. She taught third grade for 5 years in Wurzburg, Germany at an American Elementary School where she taught before moving to Illinois. Sharon’s husband was in the US Army so she had the chance to live various places around the world and learn about and enjoy many cultures. She has had the privilege of doing many jobs since they moved around a lot. Some of her adventures have been sewing professionally, modeling, teaching, arts and crafts, secretarial, teenage counseling, adult mentoring, student counsel advisor and teacher. She and her husband enjoy their children grandchildren, traveling and seeing the wonders of America, biking and walking.