Jim Golembeski, Envision Board
It is universally agreed that we have a severe workforce shortage in Northeast Wisconsin. Our state reported a mere 2.8% unemployment rate in December, the lowest on record, so it is no surprise that we lack workers to fill jobs. Might I suggest that we find the solution in our incarcerated population?
(more…)Click January 2022 Horizons for the full text of the January Envision newsletter. Meet Steve McCarthy, Envision’s new Executive Director, read outgoing President Dave Wegge’s reflection on Envision, read how the Aging and Disability Resource Center is a Strategic Foresight success story, and discover other news noted about Envision and suggested readings by Envision Board members.
Dave Wegge and Phil Hauck, Envision Board members
“I’ve always tried to keep one eye on what’s directly in front of me and the other eye on the horizon, to anticipate what’s coming. That mindset has worked well for me. Most recently it helped form the central argument for Curative Connections’ successful $8.5 million capital campaign,” explained Steve McCarthy recently as we sat down informally over coffee. “Strategic Foresight is an excellent framework that brings more discipline and rigor to leadership roles,” he said, “and that is key for anyone interested in achieving a particular desired future.”
(more…)By Nan Nelson, Board Member
“Our values are front and center here. Everyone contributes to living those values in their work, and they have to resonate with every position. Are our priorities determined by leadership? I say ‘no.’ Everything worth doing comes from the bottom up, so to speak, driven by the people at our agency who are on the front lines, living and breathing our values. We have a saying here: Every job matters -and we mean it.” So says Devon Christianson, Executive Director of the Brown County Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC).
(more…)Dave Wegge, Board member
I have been part of Envision Greater Green Bay (originally Bay Area Community Council) off and on since its creation back in the early 1990s. It’s an organization that has delivered significant value to our community through research, white papers focusing attention on key community issues, and community-wide conferences. For the past two years I have had the pleasure of serving as the president of this organization.
(more…)Lynn Gerlach, Tamarack Communication/Envision
Eleven Green Bay area leaders from seven different organizations completed a semester of Strategic Foresight Training on November 19, 2021. Click here to read their stories.
The Greater Green Bay Community Housing Initiative Task Force engaged the Corporation
for Supportive Housing (CSH) to facilitate a planning process to develop a plan to prevent
and end homelessness. The plan is designed to be action oriented, with proposed initial
“small wins” focused on reducing harm, as well as medium to long-term actions and tasks
that would transform systems and potentially change entirely how the city, county and
local providers respond to people experiencing housing instability and homelessness.
Between September 2020 and October 2021, local elected officials, county and city
leadership and staff, philanthropy, law enforcement, local providers, CSH, school staff and
employers, and people with lived experience of homelessness developed and released
The Greater Green Bay Blueprint to Prevent and End Homelessness.
This work was funded by the Basic Needs Giving Partnership, a fund of the Greater
Green Bay Community Foundation. Click here to view the entire report.
Click November 2021 Horizons for the full text of the November Envision newsletter. Meet Steve McCarthy, Envision’s recently selected Executive Director, and Foresight Network member Matt Schueller, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer of Nature’s Way. The newsletter also features several articles that interpret the 2020 census and a trending signal of world migration.
Heidi Selberg, Envision Board Member
Recent news reports about the changes in the racial composition of the US and their relation to the race/ethnicity questions on the census form have generated some confusion. Are the reported changes in the country’s racial composition a real transition, or are they simply a result of the change in the way the questions were worded? Let’s find out.
(more…)Tom Schumacher, Envision Board Member
Historically, asylum seekers were made up of those seeking safety from criminal or political violence or to escape from abject poverty in their home countries.
COVID disruptions and military conflicts are creating new waves of refugees from the middle class. They arrive with education, skills and funds to navigate the logistics of seeking asylum as they flee unstable conditions at home.
(more…)