What I’m Listening To: Some classic U2
What I’m Watching: World Cup
What I’m Doing: Sweating profusely in the insane summer heat
ELGL has a lot planned for the remainder of 2018 and the first half of 2019. We just started our fiscal year and are out fundraising to achieve our plans. As you may have noticed last year, we used traditional fundraising while also dipping our toes into crowd funding for the Diversity Dashboard (don’t forget to look for the data this week!!!).
As was stated in our Board retreat, ELGL has the goal of engaging the brightest minds in local government.
We will meet the boldness of this statement by:
- Providing timely, relevant, real content
- Fostering authentic, meaningful connections
- Expecting equity and inclusion
- Encouraging joy in public service
- Welcoming new ideas and technology
We will foster connections in 2018/19 through another round of PopUp conferences (Miami, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Portland) for October 12 around the theme of Choose Your Local Government Adventure; speaking to the concept that ELGL supports big ideas that help all local government professionals succeed. #ELGL19 will be in the Bull City, Durham, NC in May 2019.
ELGL Inspire, the series focused on outreach to undergraduate programs demonstrating the possibilities for impact and meaning from a local government career, has become a very popular event among universities. We will offer webinars and other learning opportunities while also celebrating the best in local government through awards programs and the increasingly popular City Hall Selfie Day.
ELGL remains committed to authentic connections between agencies and service providers. We, like you, don’t want to be “sold” or to create scenarios where access goes only to those with deep pockets. We are committed to a crowd sourced solution for the challenges facing you through the use of tools like the ELGL Vendor Directory. The Vendor Directory currently has 270 companies and more than 100 reviews from members who have real experiences with the service provider/solution.
ELGL adopts a different approach to membership and to vendor relations than some other associations. The reality is that our ability to produce all this great stuff is done through generous support of vendors. I have had the opportunity to get to know many of them and they are just as passionate about local government and their communities as ELGL members. They seek solutions to community challenges in parallel to local government professionals. They want to partner with us and to identify and implement creative solutions.
I want to encourage you as a local government staff member to populate the Vendor Directory with your experiences so that others can benefit from your knowledge – that’s the ELGL way. I want to partner with vendors to help fund ELGL’s bold future and I look forward to achieving all that we’ve set out to accomplish in 2018/19 together.