January 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 22

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

Volunteers are critical to the operations of our parks,
and they need to be as much in step with our new
way of doing business as our paid staff.

deserved. We had to run our programs
with manageable outcomes-and in real
dollars and cents.
To determine whether and how we
could financially sustain the parks, we
hired a consultant to evaluate our business operations in clear, unsentimental terms. Because we love these parks,
it's easy to get focused on what a facility means to us instead of to our visitors.
In 2001, we began tracking expenditures for each park and documented that
expenses were roughly the same per acre.
That data dispelled the concerns of county residents who had believed there were
significant disparities in the distribution of
funds among the county's 21 parks.
Our marketing programs, which
were primarily relationship based, became business based. We determined
exactly where we should buy ads, by
analyzing the business environment in
which we were operating-and by tracking park users' zip codes.
Today, the average return on our
marketing investments is more than $14
for every $1 spent.
The more information we gathered,
the more appropriately we could price
the use of the parks. And, with a pricing model that was reflective of both our
costs and the value we were offering, we
were better able to maintain the parks to
a consistently high standard. With better maintenance came a steep increase
in park use. Participation in recreational
programs began to grow and nearly doubled from 2009 to 2010. Pavilion rentals

20 Parks & Recreation

JANUARY 2011

increased and, equally important, zip
code tracking showed that the diversity of
groups using the pavilions also increased.
We began conducting annual economic impact studies of the parks and
presented the data to county residents
and stakeholders. Our report, for example, that Genesee County Parks' 2009
business operations had added more
than $23.3 million to the local economy-
and funded roughly 684 jobs in addition
to the park commission's own payroll-
was surprising news to most people.
Changing our model for operations
has required the commitment of everyone in the organization, from seasonal employees to commissioners. Those
very people represent a significant reason for our success, because they are
professionally and personally invested
in maintaining park resources. They are
involved in many levels of decision-making, and they have been willing to try
new ways of developing new business.
When asked how we could cut costs,
for example, their suggestions generated savings of more than $167,000 in one
year-three times our initial goal.
We changed the way we manage our
volunteers, too, and we set standards
for those workers. Volunteers are critical to the operations of our parks, and
they need to be as much in step with our
new way of doing business as our paid
staff. Initially, some volunteers advocated for closing parks rather than change
programming and facilities to meet the
market. But because they love the parks,

www.NRPA .ORG

they came over time to embrace new,
productive ways to " share " them.
Building a business is, in large part,
about building confidence. It is a very
deliberate, strategic process that has
enabled us to methodically maximize
our return on investment and cost-recovery opportunities and gain the confidence of staff, volunteers, and the public.
That new base of trust has served the
parks well in many ways, and it is, without question, responsible for the record
landslide passage of a 10-year county
millage renewal that supports the parks.
This past fall, the Genesee County
Parks and Recreation Commission was
awarded a $1.27 million grant from the
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to support general operations. It was an unusually large sum of money-nearly 15
percent of our annual budget-and even
more remarkable is that it came from a
private foundation. The careful implementation of our business plan has established both the quality-of-life impact
and the economic impact of the Genesee
County Parks. We've invested intentionally to demonstrate how preserving the
parks helps preserve the community.
We have shown that it is good business
to attract tourists, and it is good business
when local residents have opportunities
to spend their recreation dollars locally.
Operating with a solid business model is a practical, effective way to make
our parks sustainable. And we're doing it
every day here in Flint, Michigan, area-
a place with both sky-high unemployment and a monstrous loss in taxable
property values and millage revenue
over the past five years. If we can do it
here, you can do it in your district.
Stop putting your energy into management as you've always done it. Instead,
invest in change. You've attended the conference sessions. You've read the studies.
Follow our lead at the Genesee County
Parks. Create a business plan. It works.

January 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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