News
May 12th, 2023
Check out our Engagement Menu! Site Visits are Back
Community engagement is about working with our mission-aligned agencies to build long term relationships and develop meaningful solutions to complex community issues. It promotes the idea that, through intentional interactions, we can work collaboratively to create – and realize – sustainable visions for our community’s future. This is why we started our site visits again!
Site visits are a chance to connect with the people who are doing great work and recognize and acknowledge their needs and successes. It’s also a chance to see firsthand the staff’s enthusiasm for their mission, their commitment to it, and their hopes for the future. Site visits should educate and engage not report and repeat. Foundations have few opportunities to come face-to-face with our grantees, so we want to make it count. Our goal is to seek an experience from engagement and dialogue during the visit. Our goals are to
· Build trust and strengthen relationships
· Explore shared interest areas, share knowledge and identify possible new ways of working together to serve common goals
· Gain information beyond what is obtained from a written report
We’ve made the promise to be guided by mutual respect, appreciation, and trust; approach each interaction as a partnership rather than a top-down relationship; be aware of the power imbalance regardless of the equity we seek; and be a partner and ally. If you are interested in either scheduling a site visit with us or joining us on an already-scheduled site visit, email Gloria at gcoicou@cftompkins.org.
Schedule
May – Food Bank of the Southern Tier
June – Saoirse Pastures
July – The Learning Farm
August – Free Science Workshop
September – Ithaca Free Clinic
October – Community Science Institute (TBD)