SoVT Get on Board Participants Feel Better Equipped to Participate in Local Government, Lead Projects, and More
Four months after the inaugural SoVT Get on Board cohort wrapped up, participants are joining commissions, starting community initiatives, and continuing the good work they were already doing with more knowledge and confidence.
SoVT Get on Board is a local leadership development program, produced by the Southern Vermont Economy Project (SVEP) to strengthen Southern Vermont communities by recruiting and equipping more residents for community leadership positions. (Read more about the topics and sessions here.)
SVEP staff recently followed up with participants to see how their projects and visions are going.
Lynn Zhang, CFO of Hale Resources in Bennington, has recently joined the board of the Bennington Community Market and is enjoying the experience. “The GOB program definitely helped me to get an insight of how it is like to be on a board, meet different people, and work on the same project & toward the same goal,” she says. She joined the program based on the quality of past BDCC programming without a clear idea of what she was looking to get out of the course, and then, in her words, the timing “was perfect because this board asked me to join them.”
Elijah Summers, who came to Get on Board with an interest in fostering more eco-friendly building projects in the region, has been able to participate in several regional and statewide conversations around housing. They have also joined the Halifax Planning and Zoning Commission.
Naomi Parekh Ross, who joined the board as chair of the Bennington Coalition for the Homeless, has been working on updating her board materials to help support constructive sharing of roles and responsibilities between staff and board members in her organization. She’s also creating materials that codify the institutional knowledge she’s gaining in her role to allow future leaders to easily transition into the position.
Several other Get on Board participants noted ways they’ve been able to empower boards they are already on (or work with) to be more effective and get more training themselves.
Other projects underway that Get on Board participants are helping to lead include writing a grant for and coordinating summer swimming lessons for youth in Wilmington and steering a public art project in Putney.
Town meetings across Southern Vermont also benefited from Get on Board, with Beth Sturgeon of Pownal organizing an intro to town meeting for the Shires Young Professionals, and several other Get on Boarders participating in their town meeting for the first time. Jennifer Luty, development director for Northshire Day School in Bennington, noted that, after Get on Board, “I definitely felt more confident when speaking at town meetings, as my organization was on the ballot in three towns.”
To hear more about what we learned about fostering local leadership through running the first SoVT Get on Board cohort, please join us for a SVEP Knowledge Bites webinar on May 15, a roundtable discussion at the Southern Vermont Economy Summit in Dover on May 21, or a Get on Board panel at the Downtown and Historic Preservation Conference in Bellows Falls on June 5.
If you’re interested in participating in the next Get on Board cohort, you can email Meg Staloff (mstaloff@brattleborodevelopment.com) or fill out our short application form.
About the Southern Vermont Economy Project (SVEP)
Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern Vermont Economy Project provides training and technical assistance to increase local capacity, skills, and resources in order to advance local projects critical to Southern Vermont achieving community, economic, and workforce development goals. SVEP is funded through the USDA Rural Community Development Initiative. For more information please visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/svep/
