On March 12, 2020, Source For Siouxland joined the monthly Growing Community Connections meeting to announce a partnership between the two initiatives. Source For Siouxland will fill a much-needed data collection, analysis, and sharing role for the GCC collaborative, while GCC’s more than 400 partners will serve as focus groups that will help to analyze and prioritize data-driven initiatives that will build a stronger and more engaged community.

Source For Siouxland’s new partnership with Growing Community Connections leverages GCC’s regular meetings and expansive network to serve as a platform for analyzing and moving forward the data-driven initiatives Source For Siouxland or its partners will spearhead. GCC meetings, held the second Tuesday of each month, will serve as a primary method to analyze key data trends identified by the Source For Siouxland Data Team. The 80-100 community stakeholders at these meetings will be asked specific questions about the root causes of the data trends, existing resources and programs that are addressing or could address the trends, and other gaps or ideas to impact the data positively.

The Source For Siouxland Leadership Team will then utilize these monthly focus groups to guide the alignment of community resources, the implementation new initiatives, and continued communication about these community planning efforts. One of the first initiatives to be more fully implemented through this process is consolidation of the dozens of community resources guides into a single source that is regularly updated, fully representative of available resources, and accessible in various ways by both service providers and community members. The United Way of Siouxland is already working with Source For Siouxland and statewide information and referral networks to ensure this transition is successful. This initiative, in particular, will potentially serve every resident of our tristate community who is seeking services or programs that impact the well-being of the community.

Additional community planning initiatives must also provide opportunities for youth and families to be healthy and resilient contributors to society with outcomes that promote and measure across the lifespan a vibrant, productive, educated, empowered, safe, and healthy Siouxland. We look forward to working with you to identify and implement these initiatives and improve the outcomes and data of our community.

To view the Source For Siouxland presentation, please click here!