Sustainability

The mission of Weed and Seed is "to promote comprehensive strategies to reduce crime and revitalize communities." The goals are to—

• Weed: Enable communities to reduce violent and drug-related crime.
• Seed: Strengthen community capacity to enhance quality of life.
• Sustain: Promote the long-term health and resilience of the community.

It is that third goal that recognizes that Weed and Seed is not a program, but a strategy. Given that the critical issues in Weed and Seed sites are generally the result of long-term and widespread conditions, meaningful solutions require efforts that are equally longstanding and multifaceted. Read CCDO's tips on—

• Dimensions of Sustainability
• Creative Approaches to Sustainability
• Requirements for Achieving Sustainability
• Developing a Sustainability Plan

Dimensions of Sustainability

Just as Weed and Seed is a comprehensive approach to complex social problems, sustainability extends beyond a single dimension for Weed and Seed sites. A discussion of these dimensions follows.

Maintaining an effective operating structure. The foundation for sustainability involves institutionalizing a coordination infrastructure beyond Weed and Seed funding. The first step is to maintain the steering committee as a mechanism for ongoing implementation of the strategy beyond the life of the grant.

Demonstrating community impact. Ongoing assessment of unmet needs in the target area, with continuing refinement of service delivery efforts and problem solving, helps sustain the positive influence of the Weed and Seed strategy on the community.

Securing ongoing resources to support strategies. Sites must be able to identify and secure existing and new resources and funding sources. The ability to do so is the key to sustainability.

Creative Approaches to Sustainability

Sustainability can be accomplished through a variety of strategic approaches. A prototype initiative called Sustainable Safety and Community Enhancement promotes a comprehensive multisystem approach depending primarily on existing public and private resources already in or immediately accessible to the communities as opposed to federal discretionary funds. It espouses that sufficient public and private resources (i.e. financial, technical, or real property) exist within the community or the state to help resolve a community's problems. Descriptions of other approaches follow.

Statewide and Citywide Initiatives

One statewide initiative, the Arizona Sustainable Safety and Community Enhancement Initiative, is an example of an unfunded alternative to the discretionary grants approach used to implement the Weed and Seed strategy. It includes the following elements:

• Vision first: Making change requires vision, not money.
• Resource mapping: Leverage existing resources and combine them in new ways.
• Limited use of federal funds: Use federal funds only to fill gaps or enhance heightened performance standards.
• Collaboration and coordination: Reduce duplication and focus on systems improvements.
• Sustainability: Change the way business is done.

An example of a special citywide effort is found in Benton Harbor, MI. In 1998, Benton Harbor convened an economic summit led by U.S. Attorney Michael Dettmer and other key community stakeholders to identify specific actions to address the social and economic needs of the community. The summit resulted in nine areas of focus. More than $32 million was contributed by public and private sources to the implementation of the nine strategies.

Single-Issue Focus Approach

Another emerging model is for sites to take a more focused, single-issue approach to their Weed and Seed strategy to be able to leverage existing resources to support and implement their strategies. Fort Wayne, IN, is an example of a site that identified a specific issue to focus all of its efforts on: reentry. By mobilizing and leveraging local resources more effectively, Fort Wayne was able to design an innovative and sustainable reentry initiative. Read the summer 2005 issue of Weed & Seed In-Sites for more information about Fort Wayne.

Requirements for Achieving Sustainability

• Maintain a clear vision. A long-term vision spurs ideas that stimulate new partnerships, encourages local leadership capacity building, and promotes effective problem solving built around a community's assets.

• Manage expectations. Positive change in the community takes time and requires patience. Unfortunately, residents may have been disappointed by the end result of other government programs. Keep everyone in the community informed on the accomplishments achieved within the Weed and Seed strategy.

• Focus on measurable outcomes. Staying focused on achieving the community's vision means implementing activities that yield measurable outcomes. Sites should establish realistic baseline goals to measure performance. Don't be afraid to change direction in supporting new programs or services to obtain the desired outcome.

• Broaden the community's leadership pool. Continue building on the community's social capital. Work to increase the leadership capacity of residents as these individuals will ultimately lead the community's future decisionmaking process.

• Maintain effective communication at all levels. Keep all stakeholders engaged in the implementation process to help promote the success of the strategy to current and potential resource providers.

Developing a Sustainability Plan

Sustainability planning involves assessing past performance of programs and services offered in the community, identifying potential gaps or service risks, and expanding the base of collaborative partners. Sustainability planning should be closely linked with implementation of the site strategy and should begin early in the Weed and Seed 5-year funding cycle.