Main Street/Downtown First Impressions Program
Overview and Process
Program Overview:
The Main Street/Downtown First Impressions Program is designed to gather insights that will assist you in downtown planning and goal setting efforts. Through the program you will access a visitor’s reactions to previous planning efforts in your downtown. These insights, provided to you in the form of a written report and presentation, can help in evaluating the effectiveness of your Main Street/Downtown Program. You will be paired with another, similar community that is also interested in obtaining information on the effectiveness of their improvement efforts. Each of you will identify a team of volunteers who will visit the other community anonymously and complete a survey (see attached) of their impressions.
The information provided to you through the Main Street/Downtown First Impressions process will help to:
· Evaluate the success of your development initiatives
· Identify how to strengthen community services
· Create an enhanced image to the outside world
· Focus your development efforts
The Ohio State University Extension Sustainable Development Initiatives (SDI) will provide guidance to you through the implementation of this program. Your program contact at OSU Extension SDI is:
Myra Moss, Extension Educator
OSU Extension Sustainable Development Initiatives
740.607.5177
The following are the steps and responsibilities for the Main Street First Impressions Program.
Steps and Responsibilities in the Main Street First Impressions Process:
A. Local Coordinator’s Responsibilities
The local Main Street or downtown organization will be the sponsor of the program and the Main Street/Downtown Manager or leader of downtown economic development entity will be the local program coordinator. In this role, they will have the responsibility to move the program forward including managing the process, choosing and training the visitation team, accompanying the team on their visit to the paired downtown, preparing and delivering the final report, and helping to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Specific steps and responsibilities are as follows:
1. Formation of Visitation Team:
The coordinator will form a visitation team of 5 - 6 volunteer visitors. Try for diversity in this team if possible; male/female, professional/lay person, political leader/community resident, young/mature. The ideal mix would be that half of the team members are professionals with knowledge of the Main Street approach and half are not. Suggested types of individuals include:
Merchant
Elected Official
Residents at large (2)
Board Member/volunteer from working committee
Downtown Coordinator
2. Develop Local Questions:
Each community will have the option of developing three local questions for the survey and it is the responsibility of the local coordinator to facilitate this task. Ask questions that will give you information on issues of importance to your downtown, but are not already included in the survey. Indicate with each question if they are intended for inclusion in the walking or driving section of the survey. If you choose to develop these local questions, provide them to your SDI contact as soon as possible and she will develop and send to you a final master copy of the survey with the local questions included.
3. Visitation Team Training:
Train the visitation team on what is expected of them and acquaint them with the survey. This training can be provided by the local coordinator or by the SDI contact.
Before visiting the community, have a volunteer or two briefly evaluate the community’s website for content, usability and attractiveness.
4. Take Pictures During Visit:
Make sure that at least one visitation team member brings a camera and takes pictures during their visit of points the team would like to emphasize to the community they are visiting. These photographs will become part of the presentation to the matched community, so taking them with a digital camera will make it easier to insert them into a Power Point presentation. Make sure a record describing what each photo represents is maintained. The local coordinator will collect these photographic images with their descriptions and a copy of each volunteer’s completed survey as soon after the visit as possible
5. Coordinate the Visit:
Coordinate the visit the community and accompany the team. Have each visitation team member fill out a survey and collect them after they are completed. We suggest you make the visit experience together as a group (carpool). It makes for a more enjoyable experience and helps to ensure a better end result as well. Plan to arrive around 10:00 a.m. and leave by 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. This should allow sufficient time to complete your visit. Detailed instructions on your visit are included in the survey.
6. Follow Up Questionnaire:
Have each visitor fill out the Follow-up Questionnaire on the trip home. Collect these surveys for inclusion in the report to your paired downtown.
7. Final Report and Presentation:
Write up the survey responses in one document (template will be provided). Include the results of the Follow-up Questionnaire as an attachment. Send this report to your SDI contact for their review and comment. Design a presentation to share your results with the other Main Street/Downtown Program.
8. Presentation to Paired Main Street/Downtown Community:
Present the survey results to the other Main Street/Downtown Community and arrange for their presentation to you. You might want to choose one of the volunteer visitors to attend the report presentation with the coordinator. Their role would be to assist the coordinator with the presentation and verify the team’s impressions.
9. Evaluation:
Evaluate the effectiveness of the Main Street First Impressions Program and keep track of the follow-up that is generated.
B. OSU Extension SDI responsibilities:
1. Provide Information:
Provide your community with promotional materials and information listing the benefits and outlining the process of the Main Street/Downtown First Impressions Program. For those who have email capability, a brochure will be sent as an attachment in Word. If you cannot receive it that way an original hard copy of the brochure, suitable for duplicating, will be sent by mail.
2. Pair Main Street/Downtown Communities:
Pair your community with another, suitable, Main Street/Downtown. Maintain scheduling between the communities so that final reports are available to each around the same time.
3. Provide Materials and Guidance:
Provide the surveys and instructions for the visitation team. Either instruct the local coordinator on preparing the team for the visit, or conduct the training directly.
4. Review Surveys and Offer Program Assistance:
Once the survey results are completed they will be put into a final report format by the local coordinator and provided to the SDI contact for review. The SDI contact will suggest strategies and programs that may help the Main Street/Downtown in addressing the issues that arise from the report. These suggestions will be offered as a written addendum to the report.
5. Presentation Guidance:
Provide guidance to the local coordinator in the preparation of a presentation to the paired community. Suggestions regarding the presentation approach and points to cover will be provided by the SDI contact to the local coordinator.
6. Follow-Up Evaluation:
Conduct a follow-up survey of the sponsoring organization and local coordinator to determine the usage and long-term effectiveness of the Main Street/Downtown First Impressions Program in your downtown.
Prepared by Myra Moss & Bill Grunkemeyer
Ohio State University Extension
Revised 9/25/2012