The Joy of Work Plans

By Jamie Schriner-Hooper
Organization Specialist
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

It’s that time of year. Kids are heading back to school, clubs are starting and Michigan Main Street Communities are starting to make plans for their upcoming years. Just like a teacher puts together a syllabus, strong communities have a plan for their Main Street program.

One of the strong tenants of Main Street is that it is a grassroots driven program. The community decides what is best for the community, with a little guidance from a few key national and state Main Street professionals. In order to keep things organized and steer away from a room full of people who just talk about what should be done, the Michigan Main Street program helps communities to put together work plans – essentially their syllabus for the year’s projects. These include a well thought out list of each step involved in a project; a budget and timeline for each step; the specific person assigned and any notes that may be necessary. Once the project is finished, volunteers add the actual budget and project evaluation.

Now, those of you who may be hyper-organized may find the thought of putting together long lists and budgets to be great fun. (Side note, if any Main Street communities know of people like this, grab them and become their friend!) Though the word “organization” is in my title, the thought of work planning makes my mouth go dry and the rest of me sweat. I tend to be a bit of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants gal, which is exactly the reason work plans exist. If you have a committee full of these types of people, you’ll get things done, but they certainly won’t be in the order that you would ideally like them and, you’ll likely end up with a few people carrying the entire workload. This is a great way to burn out volunteers, staff and those close to them. How we at the Michigan Main Street Center define that is a “staff-driven program.” That is, work is getting done, but only a few people know the steps, the proper contact people and what was learned from the prior year. Though you may have some great and visible achievements, this is extremely hard to sustain.

Main Street is grassroots and volunteer driven. I know that I’ve already said this, but it is so important. Without a specific plan, it makes it really hard to recruit and retain good volunteers, which is what the program is all about. If you can give a volunteer an exact list of the tasks you’d like for them to complete, along with an estimated timeline, you both know what they are signing up for. Once they’ve started to work on a project, they can be a part of the work planning process the following year and hopefully become a life-long Main Street volunteer.

So, long story short, don’t panic and throw tomatoes when Michigan Main Street staff come into town to do work plan training. We’re here to help! We’ll be there right along with you for the painful work planning process. But once you have a finalized work plan, you’ll be in for smooth sailing for the rest of the year.