Tillamook County Futures Council and Oregon State University
Partner for Vital Tillamook Indicators Project

Tillamook, Ore. - On August 19, 2008, at Tillamook County Public Library Copeland Room, the Tillamook County Futures Council (TCFC) and Oregon State University (OSU) will enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together on the Vital Tillamook Indicators Project. The project is a partnership between the two organizations providing an exciting opportunity to work together and engage the community in an effort to assess the progress of the County toward its vision of a vital future.

Shirley Kalkhoven, Chair of the Tillamook County Futures Council, will sign the MOU on behalf of the Futures Council. From OSU Lena Etuk, the Principal Investigator of the project, Bruce Weber, Director of the OSU Rural Studies Program, and Scott Reed, OSU Vice Provost of Outreach & Engagement will also sign the Memorandum.

As its main goals, the project will develop indicators for the Tillamook County 2007 Strategic Vision, collect indicator data in the County, communicate findings to County residents, and store the data in an online public database called the Oregon Rural Communities Explorer. The indicators, tracked over time, will reveal to residents and decision-makers whether Tillamook County is making progress toward the goals expressed in the Strategic Vision.

The Vital Tillamook Indicator Project, funded by the Ford Family Foundation of Roseburg, Oregon, is designed to leverage the skills and knowledge of Oregon State University faculty and Tillamook County Futures Council members to work on a community relevant research project that engages community residents. The research skills of the OSU Extension Service faculty team, Dr. Bruce Weber, Ph.D., Lena Etuk, MS, and Mindy Crandall, MS, will be used to help the Tillamook County Futures Council effectively measure and track the progress toward the goals of the Strategic Vision. Members of the Tillamook County Futures Council project team, including Amy Stricklin, Marlene Putman, Jennifer Purcell, and Doug Montgomery, will provide guidance and crucial insight into the needs and concerns of County residents relevant to tracking the attainment of the Strategic Vision’s goals. Throughout the process, residents will provide input, have the chance to participate in the data collection, and have opportunities to learn about indicator data and the research process.

Vital Tillamook Indicators Reports and Summaries

	2009 Vital Tillamook Indicator Report: Baseline Assessment [ pdf ]
	2009 Vital Tillamook Indicator Report Summary [ pdf ]
	2009 Vital Tillamook Indicator Project Presentation [ pdf ]

The Oregon Rural Communities Explorer, a project of Oregon State University, provides online access to social, economic, demographic, and environmental information for rural communities across the state in a framework of rural community vitality. The website is designed to provide a forum for rural community leaders of all types to learn about, explore, and engage with their own and other rural communities across the state. Oregon State University and the Tillamook County Futures Council recently completed the Vital Tillamook Indicators Project. This project fostered collaboration between Oregon State University Rural Studies Program faculty members and Tillamook County organizations, leaders, and residents. The collaborators explored the community’s vision, vitality, and strategies for change and undertook a community-based and community-driven data collection, synthesis, and analysis effort. The results of the project will contribute to change efforts in the community and make community-based data available to residents, organizations, and policymakers engaged in rural Oregon through the Oregon Rural Communities Explorer website. As rural communities across the state engage with OSU in a process of defining their community’s vitality and gathering new data to measure the attainment of that vision, the Rural Communities Explorer will transform. The website will move from simply providing information collected by agencies external to rural Oregon to a venue that also provides information collected by rural Oregonians themselves related to issues important to them. The Rural Communities Explorer will grant access to community-generated data, promote the analysis and application of community-generated data, and highlight the actions and changes in communities. These data should contribute valuable information to organizations, agencies, and community members serving rural communities. Visit their website at http://oregonexplorer.info/rural/.

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