Permit me to speak from the heart. I love this collaboration stuff, and I don’t mind sharing that sentiment with the world.
The Southern Illinois Coal Belt Champion Community was formed in 2002 when we learned that our communities weren’t going to become an federal empowerment zone. Disappointed? Of course! We busted our butts on the empowerment zone application and ours was in my very biased perspective a darn good strategic plan. I am so proud of the way we stuck together, though — Benton, West Frankfort, Zeigler, Du Quoin, Cambria, Hurst, Perry County, Franklin County, and Williamson County. I can honestly offer two thoughts at this point.
First, we have indeed stuck together, and it has been an unbridled pleasure to work with the good people from these communities. It wasn’t hard, either. These people just know how to collaborate and they know it is important for the success of the organization and the region. In fact, I’ve learned that it actually harder NOT to work with my neighbors and colleagues with USDA Rural Development. Those who stick their heads in the sand don’t know what they are missing.
Want proof that collaboration works in SICBCC? Consider the web site you are on as you read this. Our Web Site Committee developed a vision for what they thought would best represent SICBCC on the web. They jointly shared their vision, broke it down in to tasks, and have worked the plan. The result is an informative, representative, sometimes entertaining look at who we are and what we aspire to. The committee consists of someone from a workforce development agency, a representative of a small town, a rep from a state agency, a regional planner, and a private citizen – all done with free assistance from a regional Internet service provider.
Consider the Southern Illinois Public Officials and Community Leaders conference we sponsored in May 2005. SICBCC sponsored the conference, but we worked with the Southeastern Illinois Regional Planning and Development Commission, Greater Egypt Regional Planning and Development Commission, the Delta Regional Authority Leadership Team, John A Logan College, the Office of Economic and Regional Development at SIUC, Man-Tra-Con….well, you get the picture. The day was smashing success only because the collaborators worked together.
Take a look at the Trogolo Company plant in Du Quoin, formerly the Turco building. An abandoned and dilapidated 350,000 sq. ft. eyesore, the building was sold to SICBCC in late 2006 at well below market value. SICBCC in turn sold the building to Trogolo. The seller unloaded an unloadable property and was able to use SICBCC’s 501(c)(3) status for the tax break. The buyer was able to acquire the building at a sufficiently low cost to permit major renovation. The building is now occupied and looks great. Franklin County employees were able to keep their jobs, with the possibility of more jobs ahead for western Franklin and eastern Perry Counties. All of this happened because we worked together.
That leads me to my second point. Popular opinion to the contrary we CAN collaborate in this region. We know how to do it. We CAN and HAVE dropped counties lines and city limits to work for the general good of southern Illinois, and we can do it effectively in the future. When we get in the same room, we talk the same language and walk the same walk. The time for artificial boundaries is long past, an antiquity from a time when coal was king and we didn’t need to look beyond our own county lines, let alone whole oceans.
Today our competition isn’t Indiana or Missouri. We are competing with very bright, skilled, hard-working, and motivated people in Bangalore India, Beijing China, and any home on Earth that has a computer and high speed Internet access. In the face of this truly global economy, we in southern Illinois now face our ultimate challenge. Can we work together – collaboratively – to reorient our economic and community development to meet the challenges and opportunities of the “flat” world? To cop a phrase from Ben Franklin, we are already hanging separately. Let’s slip these nooses and hang together as one prosperous community of Southern Illinois.
As the birthplace for Connect SI, SICBCC is now held in high regard for its collaborative leadership. What began as a three-county local study has blossomed into a twenty county initiative that is admired across the state and is seen as a model for rural economic development. We worked together, took some risks together, and now the whole region stands to profit from our early work and continuing example of collaboration. With our success in Connect SI, other regions of the nation and the world will be at our doorstep wondering how we so dramatically improved the quality of life in such a large region. We will be able to answer simply “We did it together.”
Rex Duncan is President of the Board of Directors of SICBCC, Inc.
For comments, please email Rex at rduncan@siu.edu
This is the first in a series of monthly articles submitted to the SICBCC website by various writers engaged in SICBCC.
