October 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 67

" There is no one who can tell our story but us. PRORAGIS
will not only add to the professionalism of our industry-
it will help us tell our stories with facts and ﬁgures.
We've never been able to do that before. "
-nRPa Ceo barbara tulipane

Clark should know. As a past chair of the Administrators Network (formerly the American Parks and
Recreation Society), he became convinced in 2009
that park managers could, if empowered by numbers and norms, revolutionize their field by estab-

ratio survey-and then by the 2010 web-based version of the survey. Tulipane had pioneered the project by charging a team of staff and consultants with
the creation of a database that would give members
answers to basic questions about their performance
in relation to other agencies. A year later, with the
database begun, Tulipane and the survey team
agreed that an online profi le option for the 2010 survey held out the promise of a richer, more complete
database.
NRPA's Senior Research Manager Bill Beckner,
who began his involvement with the operating ratio
survey project as a volunteer consultant, was also beginning to see the full range of possibilities for giving
jurisdictions control over the fi ltering, benchmarking, and reporting of their data. Beckner, a veteran
park director himself, became increasingly excited
about the prospect of agencies across the country
entering their data online, " pinning " it all to a global
map, and manipulating it according to their needs.

lishing land and facility standards. With comparative
data at their fi ngertips, agencies could streamline
their operations, pinpoint the needs of their constituents, and transform their communications with
decision-makers.
It was an idea fueled in large part by NRPA CEO
Barbara Tulipane's launch of the 2009 operating

The goal? A user-created database by which park
professionals could not only cross-reference but visually present critical data on a geospatial platform.
Clark and his peers allocated $50,000 of their network's funds as seed money for NRPA to develop a
user-driven, web-based profi ling system anchored
in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping

officials-and managed to get a referendum on the
ballot to fund more recreational facility space. While
the referendum did not pass that year, says Clark, the
numbers accomplished something that expert opinion and anecdotal evidence can rarely ever do: They
validated the need and created community consensus. And, while funding for new facilities may take a
while, Clark says the addition of indoor facilities to the
park system is now a top priority in Batavia.
" There are so many competing priorities, " the
agency director adds. " Things get so complex, and
you need ways of doing benchmarking and strategic planning. "

destroying opinions with numbers

below: PRORAGis
allows users to plot
points, lines, and
polygons-and maps
can be displayed
as either street or
satellite basemaps.
toolbars on the side
show coordinates and
other information for
all plotted assets.

w w w . N R P A . O R G O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1 Parks

& Recreation

October 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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