Editorial: It's about getting things done
It is not hyperbole to say that years from now, two announcements in Green Bay last week may be recalled as watershed moments in the history of Brown County.
Wednesday, the U.S. Oil Open Basic Needs Fund and J.J. Keller Foundation, working through the Green Bay Community Foundation, announced grants that rewarded collaborative efforts by local nonprofit organizations. One will expand dental care for children and adults in low-income families. The other will expand mental health services for people facing domestic violence and homelessness.
Thursday, the Green Bay Partnership for Children announced a five- year, $5 million plan to expand the safety net of preventive health care and education for at-risk kids and their parents, part of a collaboration by numerous organizations to ensure the best early childhood care possible for all area children.
Each of these developments deserves a more in-depth review, and we plan to do that in coming days. Today our focus is on the important notion that is common to both: collaboration.
When a community works together, it can accomplish remarkable things.
The people of Hampton, Va., decided in the early 1990s that they would shift the focus away from attacking the symptoms of social crisis and toward prevention. They have the statistics to show this approach is saving the community in the long run and ensuring a better, brighter and healthier work force. Now, a private-public partnership of Green Bay area residents has a similar idea.
Spurred by forward-thinking business leaders, nonprofit organizations are developing new approaches that involve pooling their expertise and core competencies to achieve common goals. The importance of the programs announced Wednesday and Thursday can't be understated, not only for their goals but for the way those goals will be accomplished: working together.
These initiatives have raised the bar for all of us: From this moment forward, proposals to advance the community will be judged by the extent to which they involve cooperation and collaboration.
That's always been the Green Bay way — from preserving our football franchise to building a water pipeline to Lake Michigan, local communities roll up their sleeves and just get the job done.
Now the attention turns from construction of bricks and mortar and the laying of pipe to combating poverty and improving the lives of our children.
These businesses and nonprofit agencies — more specifically the individuals within these groups — are leading the way by positive example.