February 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 54

Good customer service at the Fairfax
County Park Authority is constantly
reinforced through training and
evaluation programs.

Practice Positioning
Financial sustainability is a key component of the efforts of Gold
Medal agencies to reposition themselves as partners who bring
far-reaching benefits to their communities. Kuruvilla says the
Gurnee Park District now has the organizational self-confidence to tell its story about how it has overcome challenges to
become financially strong.
Ramsey agrees with this approach. " You've got to go out and
say, 'Here's the game plan-we've looked at it and we've just
got to have some people outside parks and recreation that will
become our champions and be voices for us'....You've got to be
able to prove what it is you're after. "
Fairfax County Park Authority Marketing Manager Nick Duray can prove that best practices at his agency are working. With
almost 100,000 registrations in more than 1,000 program titles
each year, surveys provide invaluable systemwide customer
service management data back to the program managers-previously results were limited to local evaluations. Results are distributed back to program sites on a quarterly basis to provide
feedback, help uncover issues and solve problems, and identify
which parts of the program delivery are strengths or weaknesses. The agency even hires " secret shoppers " to report back on
customer service. Duray believes good customer satisfaction
helps contribute to the strong community loyalty and support
for park and recreation programs in the county.
" We're in a people business, " Duray says. " For the people
who have had problems that we've been able to solve to their
satisfaction, we're able to rebound their satisfaction and loyalty
ratings back up to where they were before they had problems.
We've documented over time that if we don't address those issues, their feelings about us will just get worse. "
In Peoria, not only do residents have high expectations for
their parks but the park district has high expectations for them
in return, particularly when it comes to disadvantaged students.
The district's Youth Outreach Intervention Department administers an extensive job training and social skills program for atrisk youth called ELITE (Economic Leaders Integrating Trained

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Employee Youth). Over 40 local businesses have committed to hiring certified program graduates. In order
to graduate from the three-year program, ELITE members must meet certain standards for school attendance,
grades, behavior, and adhering to the
school dress code. More than 500 high
school students currently participate in
the ELITE program.
" We're able to continuously test results by measuring the success of the
program in terms of achievements of
the participants...school attendance,
grades, behavior, and social interaction, " McKone says. " We have taken our ELITE program far
beyond the traditional role of a recreation program through several community-wide projects. "
Lovell of Lee's Summit makes telling the broader story of
park and recreation benefits a priority. " For us practitioners,
the best practice now in my opinion is educating the people we
serve about all of these amazing benefits that occur....There's
impact that occurs in more ways than just the typical standard
understanding of citizens about parks and rec. "
For example, a summer concert series that costs $30,000 to
produce may bring in 15,000 people, each of whom may spend
$20 in the community that evening. Or, Lovell notes, it costs
$71,000 to incarcerate one juvenile for a year but the community
can instead decide to invest that money in a community center
that hires 120 young adults.
Fairfax County's John Dargle sums up his agency's growing role in the community: " We are repositioning ourselves to
meet community issues and needs. How can we contribute and
help our elected officials in things such as transportation, obesity, health, and wellness?....We're progressing to another level
here of not only continuing to do our mission to preserve and
protect the land-the natural and cultural resources-but also
to provide facilities that enhance the quality of life of the community. It's now getting into those community issues that we can
be involved with in partnering with our friends and volunteers
and the community as a whole. "

Practice on Your Friends
Volunteers and friends groups also can benefit from incorporating best practices. The Lee's Summit Park and Recreation Board
actively works to develop and nurture its 3,200 volunteers by
providing them with communication, training, and oversight.
And they're working to create a statewide networking group
for friends of parks in other communities in Missouri, using
what they've learned in developing a repositioning program
in Lee's Summit.
Back in Virginia, the Fairfax County Park Foundation offers

February 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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