Defining the Role of Merced Ahead (Download PDF)

Vision: Connecting and inspiring our community for action.

Mission: Informing, convening, engaging, acting, and creating change.

This document defines Merced Ahead’s goals and role going forward. It also serves as an outline for individual activities for one person or a small group of members to work on an activity listed in the outline below. Examples include helping develop our database, working on the financial sub-committee, etc.

We expect that this document will change as we gain experience and insight regarding our projects.

Objective: To have the ability to support community projects developed by individuals, groups, or multiple groups to a successful conclusion. Support means all activities needed to assist these projects other than direct financial support.

A.	Most projects will be brought to the core Merced Ahead group. Some may originate with Merced Ahead.

B.	Projects are independent and not being completed by Merced Ahead itself.

C.	Some will require short term and minimal support. Some will be long term and/or major support projects.

D.	Merced Ahead will serve as a communication conduit to inform the community of various community projects on an ongoing basis.

Merced Ahead Activities:

A.	Meet regularly to advance our vision and mission.

B.	Continue to identify and encourage new members to attend our core group meetings.

C.	Promote Merced Ahead on an ongoing basis to build support for our activities.

D.	Develop a fund-raising ability within our own group to support our efforts on a permanent basis.

E.	Issues of informing and convening.

F.	Communicating and informing others.

G.	Early conversations with other groups to share ideas and prevent silos.

Support Activities for Projects:

A.	Assign a specific person or persons to assist a project already reviewed and accepted for Merced Ahead. Assisting will consist of all those items listed above.

B.	Provide information, names, and contacts on behalf of project.

C.	Help organize the project group and assist in developing their business plan.

D.	Help publicize programs, objectives, and efforts to general and specific publics.

E.	Assist projects in finding resources to get the projects completed.

F.	Do research on community assets and use them to support projects.

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

A.	We should begin supporting individuals and groups now even though we do not have all the answers.

B.	Assign individuals or small groups to start the following projects now.

a.	Individual projects

b.	Developing additional members.

c.	Handling communications.

d.	Developing Merced Ahead’s own fund raising efforts.

e.	Other/s________.

C.	See other meeting notes from the November 6, 2010 Visioning Meeting.