The first Brown County United Way Community Planning Summit was held Tuesday, Sept. 26, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. More than 80 participants gathered at the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay to determine how the Brown County United Way will:

• Continue to build relationships that will make the organization most effective;
• Mobilize Brown County’s resources;
• Provide the best possible community service; and
• Communicate Brown County’s human services needs, and how lives can be improved.

The focus of the summit was derived by compiling more than 100 interviews taken from a board cross-section of people in Brown County. Interview questions were focused on what respondents envision as an ideal future for Brown County.

Summit participants employed a decision-making method used worldwide by both nonprofits and large corporations known as appreciative inquiry. This process, originally developed in 1980 by a graduate student and his advisor at Case Western Reserve University, places an emphasis on collecting many participants’ personal experiences and transforming them into a unified strategic plan.

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