|
 Formation of the California Regional Network, consisting of 22 regionally based civic organizations working to improve Californias economy and quality of life while enhancing social opportunity, was officially announced at the sixth annual Civic Entrepreneur Summit, held earlier this month in Sacramento, California. The Civic Entrepreneur Summit is organized by the California Center for Regional Leadership (CCRL), a statewide nonprofit group founded in 2000 to support, facilitate and promote innovative regional solutions to major economic, environmental and social challenges confronting California.
The regional organizations or regional collaboratives (RCs) that make up the California Regional Network act as conveners and coordinators of community initiatives and participatory governance within their regions. A voluntary association supported and facilitated by CCRL, the Network enables member RCs to share resources and assist one another in building consensus and developing collaborative strategies.
The purpose of the Network is to enable RCs to better exercise civic leadership on a regional level by serving as a platform for (1) sharing best practices, (2) developing resources and funding to support individual RCs and joint activities, (3) communicating the work of RCs to the public, media and the philanthropic community, and (4) developing policy remedies and joint action strategies. This fourth activity is accomplished through the California Policy Reform Network, a separate program supported by CCRL. (For more information on CCRL, go to www.calregions.org/about/index.html)
Examples of topics on which the California Regional Network currently works collaboratively include the following:
-
Programsregional indicator projects, economic strategy and workforce investment programming, regional visioning and planning, and civic engagmen.
-
Policieslocal, regional and state fiscal structures, infrastructure planning and investment, broadening social and economic opportunity, accommodating population growth while sustaining quality of life.
-
Communications and outreachvisibility for individual regional collaboratives and the overall network.
-
Resources, grants and fund developmentjoint fundraising campaigns for individual regional collaboratives and the network.
Acknowledging that California faces both short-term crises and long-term challenges and opportunities, the Network seeks to maximize the effectiveness of regional organizations in the arenas listed above by applying the values and principles of stewardship, innovation, collaboration, economic strength, environmental commitment, diverse engagement, and regional action. These values and principles explicitly reference the scale of work favored by the civic entrepreneurs whom CCRL invites to its annual statewide summitsleaders who have undertaken to solve public problems by working across departments, agencies, jurisdictions, and superficial geographic distinctions.
Because the Network is a voluntary, self-governing group of civic leaders from Californias regional collaboratives, participating organizations are free to choose the activities in which they engageinitiatives may be entered into individually, by the entire network, or by clusters of organizations.
The 22 organizations in the California Regional Network are profiled in depth in California Regional Network: Regions Working Together for a Better California, which also presents in detail the objectives of the group. The publication may be viewed in pdf format and printed by pointing your browser to www.calregions.org/pdf/crnpub-regionsworking.pdf.
|
