Chattanooga Stand Reveals Financial Data and Strategic Plans

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Just after the launch of Chattanooga Stand, a new "visioning" initiative, we offered our vision as a challenge to Stand's organizers: become a model of radical transparency in Chattanooga. Yesterday, campaign coordinator Sarah Lester took the first step towards that goal by publishing financial data and strategic plans, as well as a list of board members,  supporting organizations and pledged partners.

According to the site, Chattanooga Stand receives day-to-day guidance from a Board of Directors, comprised of Stephen Culp, Lisa Flint, Wade Hinton, Sarah Ingle, J.Ed. Marston, Josh McManus, and Karen Rennich. The Stand campaign is supported by seven staff members and a community roundtable of volunteers.

Rountable meetings, which are open to "hopeful and helpful" members of the public, are held every other Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. at Bluegrass Grill on E. Main St. The next meeting is scheduled for June 10, 2009.

The Board of Directors operates as an unincorporated association with an independent fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga. According to the site, $500,000 has been pledged to support the campaign. An initial round of $330,000 in funding has already been secured from the Lyndhurst Foundation, and an additional $170,000 in funding is listed as "pending." Supporting organizations include CreateHere, The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies, La Paz de Dios, UTC, and Widgets & Stone.

Notably absent from the list is the Chattanooga Times Free Press, which covered Chattanooga Stand in a pair of front-page articles on May 3 and 4. Those articles prompted a letter to the editor by David Morton, arguing that the coverage "reads more like a coronation of future leadership rather than unbiased news accounts."

Ms. Lester explained that the TFP "partnered with [Stand] for the initial news break, editorial coverage and discounted advertising," and indicated she would update the site to appropriately reflect their ongoing support.

Full statement from Ms. Lester, Chattanooga Stand campaign coordinator:

Chattarati Editors and Readers,

Many thanks for your sharing your vision and pointing out the opportunity to create a deeper understanding of Stand's processes, people and partnerships. ChattanoogaStand.com's About page has been updated to include the information below. However, to directly address your points:

- Meetings. Every meeting is and will remain open to the public. Roundtable planning meetings occur every two weeks at Bluegrass Grille (55 E Main Street). The next meeting is June 10th at 5:00 PM. Come one, come all - what we expect of ourselves and anyone joining the conversation is to remain hopeful & helpful, part of & proud of.

- Technology. We're balancing constraints of limited time, financial and people-power. If you have the technology and the know-how for making audio recordings or live streaming available to the public, I'd love to hear from you.

- Strategy, Funding, Partners, Board & Roundtable. Please (re)visit the website's About page for in-depth information about our strategy for reaching 25,000 responses, our approach to funding and a better breakdown of the many people and organizations involved in Stand. If you want to delve even further, here's a link to the every-evolving Field Strategy my team is using.

- Data. Stand's stated goals are to seek input from thousands of community members through the survey and to make the results transparent and easy to access. After we've finished surveying the region, we plan to release the raw data to the public in a searchable digital format, along with an Executive report with the data results in tangible, useful bites. This is possible thanks to The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies and UTC's Center for Applied Social Research and Dr. Andy Novobilski, Chief Research Officer.

As Campaign Coordinator for Stand, I personally welcome your questions, concerns and challenges regarding the process itself - along with your input and idea about what's next for Chattanooga.