BR&E Toolkit Workshops
Education and training are essential components of the BR&E Toolkit. One of
the primary objectives of the Toolkit is to build capacity among local leadership
within the context of community and economic development. This is accomplished through
the development and implementation of meetings designed specifically to assist communities
in conducting successful BR&E programs. Depending on the BR&E Toolkit
package selected, the user is eligible to select up to four meetings delivered in
his or her community in addition to the two required meetings.
The University of Minnesota Extension BR&E Toolkit currently offers eleven meetings
and/or facilitations. These meetings are generally designed for communities that
use a BR&E Task Force. However, if an individual or small group is doing
the BR&E, these meetings could be delivered to that person or small group.
- Planning Your BR&E
- BR&E Leadership Team
Training
- SurveyGold Software Training (Required)
- Putting Together a Good
Survey Training (Required)
- Task Force Training
- Business Visitor Training
- Immediate
Survey Follow-Up (aka Warning Flags Analysis) Training
- Basic Data Analysis &
Report Writing Training
- Task Force Retreat Facilitation
- Community Commencement
Meeting Facilitation
- Project Implementation
Training
(Required) Since knowledge of the survey software and good survey
techniques are essential to good data collection, these items are required meetings.
The two required meetings include trainings on SurveyGold software and creating
effective surveys.
Deep data analysis
of the survey results is another optional service available from BR&E Toolkit.
An Extension staff person would export data to a data analysis program like Microsoft
Excel and produce data analysis based on requests from the community, such as cross
tabs, filtered data, statistical analysis, etc. Choosing this option counts
as one meeting. The deep data analysis is sent to the community electronically.
If the community desires an in-person presentation of the deep data analysis that would count as another meeting against the number of meetings in the Toolkit package purchased by the community.
Description of Meetings
The Introduction meeting is designed to help a core group of people interested in
leading a BR&E project in a community to outline their program. The BR&E
Toolkit Handbook will be reviewed. There will be facilitated discussion about
what business sectors would be interviewed. There will be decisions on who
to recruit for the Task Force and the development of a sense of how to complete
a successful BR&E program.
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This meeting is designed to help communities that plan to use a BR&E program
that distributes responsibility to a leadership team of three to five members.
The overall coordinator will distribute tasks to a survey coordinator, a milestone
meeting coordinator, a media coordinator and a business resources coordinator.
These roles will be discussed thoroughly in this meeting.
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This meeting is required for all new BR&E Toolkit users. Unless a user
learns SurveyGold (SG), they will not be able to optimize their use of the BR&E
Toolkit. The SurveyGold software is used for survey creation, data tabulation
and analysis, report creation, etc. Meeting participants should be the people
who actually work with SG in the community. It will cover how to set up a
survey in SG including importing survey templates and questions from Extension or
other BR&E Toolkit users. Users will learn how to set up online, in-person,
e-mail, or mail-out surveys with SG. How to enter the data, analyze it and
create reports will be covered as well as exporting data to other SG users or other
software programs for deeper analysis. SG has robust tutorial, online and
other user support available for deep learning; this meeting orients users as to
the specifics of using SG for BR&E work.
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This meeting is also required for new BR&E Toolkit users. Without a well
designed survey instrument a BR&E initiative will neither attain good data nor
benefit from a high response rate from the businesses. Without good data and
a strong response, the credibility and usability of the information suffers.
The meeting leads participants through considerations for good survey design including:
strengths and weaknesses of different types of questions, writing clear questions,
visual design issues, question sequencing, and issues pertinent to different delivery
methods (i.e. in-person interviews, online, mail-out surveys, etc.). It also
delves into the BR&E Toolkit survey resources (template surveys and the question
bank). Finally, teams will learn how to test a new survey instrument before
it is released.
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This meeting is for communities that use a Task Force. Extension facilitates
this meeting and helps the group answer the questions that need to be answered before
launching the visitation.
Sample BR&E Task Force Meeting Agenda
- Distribution of Task Force Packets (local coordinator prepares these
in advance)
- Introductions
- Presentation of BR&E Process and Local Program
- Review and Discussion of Program Objectives
- Discussion of survey instrument, draft letters,
- and the plan for selecting businesses to visit
- Additional questions from Task Force
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This meeting is designed for communities using volunteer visitors for survey data
collection. Participants will get to observe and discuss good, bad and ugly
visitation techniques and will have a chance to look at the survey instrument and
goals of the program. Typically, this meeting would be held at the launch
of the visitation program. Visitor teams could be formed at this meeting and
matched with businesses to visit or the visits could be pre-assigned before the meeting.
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This meeting is facilitated by Extension to guide a community through the process
of confidentially reviewing the completed survey instruments to determine immediate
follow-up issues. These are issues (aka warning flags) identified in survey
instruments from the visited businesses. Issues can be prioritized as far
as immediate, medium term and longer term response. Also, the specific issues
are assigned to reliable and knowledgeable persons for follow-up. The Business
Resources Coordinator is responsible for tracking the assignments for follow-up
to ensure that the follow-up happens. The credibility of the community is
on the line with these issues.
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The Data Analysis and Report Writing Meeting provides training on data analysis
within the context of economic development. The Overall Coordinator and/or
the person responsible for entering and analyzing the survey data should attend.
However, this meeting could also be useful to Task Force members and other community
leaders who are interested in learning how to analyze, interpret, and present data
for use in their local BR&E program, as well as other economic development-oriented
projects.
The meeting covers analysis, interpretation, and reporting strategies of the primary
and secondary data as they apply to the program objectives set by the BR&E Task
Force. Understanding and making use of the survey data is often challenging for
many Coordinators and Task Force members. The meeting is designed to help attendees
sort through the data, select and analyze what is relevant to the program objectives,
and then construct a narrative that interprets the information. This narrative of
the local economy can then be used for action planning, policy setting, and other
economic development ventures. Attendees are encouraged to bring their program objectives
and data files. The meeting provides sources for secondary data, report templates,
and a methodology for understanding and communicating the local community’s
economic story.
 Watch a video on Community Profile Research Tools
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When the survey data has been collected, tabulated and put into report form by the
Leadership Team, Extension knows how to help the community prioritize the issues
and move into follow-up action. The data is reviewed completely yet the meeting
won’t get deadly boring because sound adult education and strategic planning
methods are employed. A series of strategy discussions will cycle through
data presentation, individual reflection, discussion, and decision making.
Extension plays the role of neutral broker as far as what the community decides
to do, however, it is highly experienced at getting the community to choose some
actions and move forward.
Some communities may want to have Extension facilitate more than one meeting during
the action planning process because having at least two meetings is helpful for
effective data analysis, issue/idea generation and action planning (see Part 6 and
Part 10 of this Handbook). Each session counts as a meeting choice under the
community’s BR&E Toolkit package.
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The Community Commencement meeting is the opportunity for the BR&E Task Force
to announce and celebrate the results of the BR&E survey and action planning
process with the community at a big public meeting. This is for the Task Force
that is not afraid to make a splash and engage with the broader community.
Extension does not play a central role here but rather works to help plan the meeting
ahead of time and as the facilitator keeps the meeting vibrant and engaging for
all. Some communities use this meeting as an opportunity to recruit volunteers
for action projects.
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Extension has done program evaluation of and case study research of communities
that have engaged in BR&E programs. This meeting shares insights from
this research in order to motivate local BR&E participants and give them the
skills for successful action over time. Some BR&E “studies”
have been just that – beautiful, brilliant and even inspiring reports that
go up on the proverbial shelf. This meeting is not designed to be “neutral”.
Extension is biased toward firing up the participants with research-based information
so they can implement action plans, optimize their results and claim success for
their local economy.
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