Starting the Next Quarter Century with a Refreshed Roadmap
When Cobscook Experiential Programs staff want to take students out on a field-based learning expedition, they start with with a pile of information - details about the participants they’re working with, a sense of the academic and social-emotional objectives they’d like to work on or meet. They consider the resources they have to work with, and they think about what might have the biggest impact on the students. Ultimately they come up with a plan.
The staff and board who currently steward Cobscook Institute just completed a similar process. We are almost three years into an experiment with shared governance and distributed leadership. We required a new map for Cobscook, one that sets direction for the coming years based on specific goals responsive to community need. The following goals will guide the evolution of Cobscook Institute’s next chapter:
• Manifest a community homeplace that foregrounds nurturing pathways to improved individual and community well-being in all aspects of its function.
Within this goal, we will focus how Cobscook programs and activities support the well-being of all, especially vulnerable populations within our community. We’ll work to maximize the ways in which folks can access Cobscook and its capacity to work with community members to imagine how we can make things happen together. We’ll also focus on how to be more impactful with our signature programs and reach more with what we’re already doing well.
• Foster a culture that catalyzes and advances community-driven initiatives with regional impact.
With this goal, we will strengthen the ways the surrounding communities inform and help build the programming at Cobscook Institute while fostering meaningful engagement with all communities around the region, including the Passamaquoddy Nation and those who experience issues related to lack of access, poverty, and isolation.
• Cultivate long-term resiliency and sustainability for our region by responding to the challenges of climate change.
In the next three years, we’ll produce a climate response roadmap for our campus and operations and be a partner in providing educational programming on climate change and the green energy transition.
• Build long-term organizational health through strategic investment in governance structures, operational systems, and staff well-being.
A strong and sustainable organization is built on strong policies, practices, and plans, the ability to
invite a diverse group of folks in to create a vibrant, effective organization, and the tools needed to communicate the impact of our collective efforts. Within this goal, we’ll focus on these facets of Cobscook Institute’s operations so that we’re strongly positioned to make a difference in Downeast Maine and beyond for the next 25 years.
We’re excited about the shared map we’ve created, and where it is taking us as a community supporting organization. If you’d like to join us moving any of these specific goals forward you can find more information on our website.