From building a new website to distributing door hangers, the Seward County Chamber and Development Partnership has used a wide variety of tactics to engage the county communities this past year.
SCCDP President Jonathan Jank said the partnership has come a long way since its creation in February 2016. The organization’s main focus is its 2035 Vision Statement and Guiding Principles.
“The point behind that was you can’t get somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going,” Jank said.
The 2035 Vision Statement says its goal is to make Seward County a “vibrant” and “family friendly” community while recognizing “pillars of strength,” such as business and education, while making Seward a desirable location for businesses, visitors and residents.
It states residents will enjoy diverse neighborhoods and viable main streets with recreational opportunities, active civic life, faith-based living and quality housing and employment choices.
The Guiding Principles are integrity, respect, leadership, giving/philanthropy and planning.
During the creation of SCCDP, eight different organizations from across the county came together to create the vision statement, Jank said.
These organizations were the Utica Commercial Club, Milford Chamber of Commerce, Seward Area Chamber of Commerce, Seward Housing Development Corporation, Seward Arts Council, Seward County Economic Development Corporation, Seward Area Development Corporation and Seward County Visitor's Committee.
Through the partnership of 250 public and private members, SCCDP has an annual revenue of $414,127 with estimated expenses at $403,902 for 2017 as of July, Jank said.
He said 33.8 percent of the budget comes from the public sector, while 66.2 percent comes from private organizations and individuals.
The partnership uses the money for organization operations such as staff time, marketing and its new website, he said.
Public sector members include investors from villages and first- and second-class cities, the county commissioners, the cities of Seward and Milford and the villages of Utica, Cordova and Bee.
Private sector members are individuals who invest in the partnership, individual businesses, nonprofit organizations and larger area employers, including Tenneco, Hughes Brothers and Concordia University.
Private sector funds also come from event income, contract work with the Seward County Visitor's Committee, real estate leases and non-dues revenue like grants, merchandise and reimbursements, Jank said.
Members receive benefits such as referrals by partnership staff, discounts on various partnership events and programs, the ability to post notices in the Blue River Buzz newsletter and more.
SCCDP’s new website is CultivateSewardCounty.com and was launched July 1.
“We are pretty excited about it,” Jank said.
Jank said the first goal was to get everyone on the same page. SCCDP asked Seward County’s 10 communities to adopt its mission statement and guiding principles.
All of the communities except Beaver Crossing agreed, he said.
“We went to the last one and they said, ‘It’s not that we don’t want to adopt it, we are just choosing not to do this. We will stay engaged,’” Jank said.
“Just because they didn’t adopt that doesn’t mean that they still aren’t on board with our activities.”
One of the programs SCCDP has been using is Marketing Hometown America. It is a partnership with University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension that identifies assets within Seward County and finds ways to promote them to newcomers, visitors and existing community members.
Six communities, including Beaver Crossing, Bee, Garland, Milford, Seward and Utica, committed to participate in the program and all of them except Garland reported their process, Jank said.
“What’s been exciting to see is that they’ve all created their own action items for their priorities and what their community wants to do moving forward,” Jank said.
According to Jank, Milford has been working on getting a new restaurant to increase the number of visitors. An action group has been created called The Milford Restaurant Action Team, Jank said.
Utica has been working on a community foundation and investing back into its community, Jank said. Improvements include upgrading park equipment and working on revitalizing downtown.
Bee has started a community website to help promote community activities, Jank said.
Another effort SCCDP has done with all of the communities in the organization is door hangers.
“We are going a little old school in our marketing efforts,” he said.
The door hangers provide information about the community’s events and activities on one side, with county events and activities on the other.
“We are just trying to help people understand what’s going on, not just in their community, but also county wide,” Jank said.
SCCDP has an online weekly newsletter called Blue River Buzz and uses social media, too.
Shane Baack chairs the board of directors for SCCDP. He said SCCDP is looking for a certain kind of growth in Seward County.
“We want strategic growth, we don’t want just any growth,” he said.
Strategic growth in Seward County is going to be small- to medium-size businesses, Baack said.
“We’re probably not going to attract a 1,000-person employer,” he said.
SCCDP is looking for 10- to 20- people employers that can grow into the next level of business, Baack said.
SCCDP is working on nine action items to move into the upcoming fiscal year: provide marketing opportunities for members, provide workforce development initiatives for members, enhance focused and targeted economic development program, conduct a strategic assessment of Seward County's needs, improve communications both internally and externally in Seward County, create a Seward County newcomers working group, create a Seward County first impressions working group and promote the usage of the countywide events calendar.
According to Jank, these items were developed through direct feedback from member surveys, the board of directors strategic planning process and public input from Marketing Hometown America.
Throughout the past year, SCCDP has faced some challenges.
“One of our greatest challenges is getting everybody to play well in the sandbox together,” Baack said.
It has been a large transition from the partner organizations being on their own to now being in a team.
“We haven’t been able to please everybody, but we are sure doing our best,” he said.
SCCDP is working on downtown revitalization in multiple communities, Baack said. “But that doesn’t make everybody happy. When money is spent on certain projects, they don’t always appeal to everybody,” he said.
Through SCCDP’s board of directors, it has 15 different members holding the staff accountable.
Board meetings are held for SCCDP, but are not open to the public.
“I hope that we are as transparent as we can be,” Jank said. “Ultimately this organization exists to help Seward County grow strategically over time.”
“We’re just constantly promoting our communities to people to want to live here, play here, work here and really provide resources for them to be successful in doing so,” Baack said.
