Fall, 1996 (v8n4)

Technical Reviews

Working together: Strategies for Bay Area greenspace groups

Larry Orman

Greenbelt Alliance, San Francisco, Calif. 1996

This report is a concise summary of the assessment and shared strategy for the future of more than 300 Bay Area greenspace citizen groups. The pressures of suburban sprawl, redevelopment in cities and slashed local budgets pose challenges to the future of the San Francisco Bay Area's greenspace. Instead of resting hopes on state and local government or the actions of local groups alone, this study was initiated to find out how cooperation and collaboration among greenspace groups throughout the region could offer new opportunities for the 1990s and into the next century. Many of the key issues, obstacles and needs identified are common to the broader sustainable agriculture movement. The process used in this study for gathering information and synthesizing data offers a good model for the sustainable agriculture movement as it works toward building public and political understanding and support.

Ranging from sites as small as community gardens to crop and grazing lands beyond the urban fringe, greenspaces form a regional system of natural land resources that are currently under pressure. This report was developed to examine the status of the region's greenspaces and to identify collaborative opportunities among the Bay Area's 300-plus greenspace groups. Funded by the USDA Forest Service State and Private Forestry Branch, the San Francisco Foundation and Greenbelt Alliance, the report summarizes the key issues facing each of seven "clusters" of greenspace interests: urban creeks and watersheds, urban forests, trails, parks and other public lands, urban farms and gardens, greening and restoration sites, and public lands. It then examines what could be done within each cluster and also what could be done to work across boundaries of cluster interests. The report emphasizes how citizen greenspace groups can improve their effectiveness through collaboration using three broad strategies: work together regionally to be more effective locally, improve coordination and collaboration within greenspace clusters, and create a marketplace to link up individual greenspace groups having similar needs.

Cluster Group Assessments

The report is divided into five sections. The first section describes the seven cluster groups in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. The rationale for this project is that a "green infrastructure" in the Bay Area can improve public and political understanding and support, and lead to useful collaboration among greenspace groups. Although the groups have many different operational goals and missions, the report emphasizes and explores three major linkages that create a metropolitan framework for greenspace groups: 1) ecological and geographic interdependence, 2) social, cultural and economic linkages, and 3) the growing void of state and federal resources, coupled with the inability of many localities to provide adequate resources to meet greenspace needs.

The second section of the report describes the findings from surveys of each greenspace cluster. Cluster leaders were invited to identify the pressing issues for their cluster and to offer assessments of what they needed to move ahead more effectively and what opportunities they saw for the future. After listing the issues and needs for each cluster, the third section of the report synthesizes the primary issues facing all greenspace groups. The nine key issues common to all groups were: funding shortfalls,public support focused on other issues, the need for increased ethnic diversity in leadership and support bases, changes or threats to key state and federal environmental laws,debate over the balance of public and private rights, the challenge of ensuring vigorous and effective volunteer and staff leadership, keeping pace with changes in information technology, pressures for development both in cities and at their edges, and building linkages between greenspace and economic improvement.

Strategies for the Future

Section four of the report outlines the three strategies greenspace groups identified to overcome the obstacles to their goals: 1) clusters can work together regionally, 2) within clusters, coordination and collaboration can be improved and 3) individual greenspace groups can create a "marketplace" to help organizations ally with those who share their needs. To assess these three strategies more thoroughly, each greenspace cluster was surveyed as to which types of collaborative projects would be of interest. Although most groups had a history of working with diverse partners on specific, immediate projects and a few had the beginnings of a regional coordinating framework, there was relatively little multigroup cooperation on more general needs such as fundraising, training, organizational development, public education or policy development. The report discusses how these needs could be met through the three collaborative strategies.

Strategy #1: Work together regionally to be more effective locally. The report makes nine specific suggestions including: building coalitions around funding opportunities, building coalitions around policy issues; creating programs aimed at increasing leadership and other skills among board, staff and key volunteers; developing public education campaigns; developing legal resources; improving the ability to use emerging computer technology; coordinating joint briefings for public officials; making joint funding requests for specific needs; and developing seed grant funds for smaller organizations.

Strategy #2: Improve coordination and collaboration within greenspace clusters. Several of the clusters came up with specific ideas for collaborating more effectively. Ideas included forming a regional organization for a network of trails, holding a Bay Area creeks workshop, coordinating legislative and public education within the Greenbelt cluster, and continuing the Bay Area Open Space Council. Other ideas included sharing operations equipment (machinery, tools, etc.), producing joint special events, having joint training seminars for fundraising staff, organizing joint public opinion polls, operating a clearinghouse for preferred service vendors, having shared speakers bureaus, developing a regional internship program and coordinating actions alerts.

Strategy#3: Create a marketplace to link up individual greenspace groups. The report admits that the challenge is now how to enable those with common interests to find each other. The Greenspace Project will make this information available to all groups surveyed. However, the next step suggested was to jointly fund an annual intern position charged with finding matches between groups with similar interests.

The report ends with a discussion of several principles for carrying out the strategies. It suggests identifying "quick results" projects-those that are high return in the short-run and require low effort. Voluntary and collaborative efforts should result in quick rewards in order to encourage further investment of time. Developing partnerships with some existing resource groups that are already engaged in collaborative work would be helpful. However, there needs to be a unifying theme to drive any new collaboration. Finally, all of these beginning efforts need to be coordinated by some "umbrella" entity using the top needs identified in this report and other opportunities as a starting point. The practicalities of implementing the projects are left up to the greenspace groups themselves. This report offers the reasons for groups to get involved, the key issues, directions and strategies that will build a more effective greenspace movement. It is now up to individual leaders in the greenspace groups to start the journey.

For more information: Greenbelt Alliance, 116 New Montgomery Street, Suite 640, San Francisco, CA 94105. Phone:
(415) 543-4291. E-mail: greenbelt@igc.apc.org
URL: http://www.greenbelt.org/gba

GWF.896 Contributed by Gail Feenstra