Steering Committee Guidance
Create a steering committee and facilitate meetings.
What does the steering committee do?
The steering committee guides the planning and engagement process. Responsibilities of steering committee members include:
- Guidance, Vision, and Oversight
- Leadership of the planning process
- Identify the purpose and goals for the recreation and tourism plan
- Use data and input to inform plan development and learning
- Track progress of work using agreed-upon indicators
- Serve as a vocal champion for the plan and its implementation
Use the downloadable Steering Committee Agreement to document roles and responsibilities.
Who is part of the steering committee?
Committee members need to have the capacity and willingness to connect with others. The ideal size of a steering committee is 15-20 participants. Not every committee member will take part in every meeting. Use the checklist to identify potential committee members.
Steering Committee Member Checklist
- Understands the community and context of the place
- Has influence in the community
- Supports recreation and tourism
- Brings diverse ideas
- Listens to understand others’ perspectives
- Fosters trust-building and collaboration
How to bring the steering committee together:
- The project champions identify potential steering committee Members
- The project champions ask potential steering committee members if they can participate. See sample email/conversation guide below.
- The facilitator plans and schedules a kickoff meeting.
Meeting Scheduling Tools:
Sample Outreach Message
Hi xxxxxx – I am working with the
Steering Committee Meetings
The steering committee meeting schedule should provide enough time to complete tasks. See the downloadable Sample Steering Committee Agenda for guidelines on the planning process and timeline. Steering committee meeting topics may include:
- Project purpose
- Existing conditions
- SWOT/SOAR analysis
- Stakeholder identification
- Data gathering
- Reviewing community input
- Finalizing a vision statement for the project
- Identifying actions and indicators of success
- Finalizing the plan and implementation needs (e.g., funding, capacity, commitments)
The committee should meet to kickoff the project (see sample kickoff meeting agenda). At this meeting, the committee should discuss roles, process, and timelines. The committee should also talk about the project’s purpose, challenges, and opportunities.
A steering committee facilitator may be useful. This should be someone who is familiar with the community and able to work with groups. This may be someone from the community or a consultant hired for this purpose.
The steering committee may also want to choose a small core team that meets more often. The core team can help track progress and prepare for upcoming committee meetings and events. The core team typically includes the project champion(s), the facilitator, and 1-2 other steering committee members.
Facilitating discussions
Good facilitation is about asking good questions! Steering committee members want to share their ideas and opinions. The facilitator's job is to make sure each committee member has a chance to contribute.
Tips for facilitating discussions:
- Make sure each person has a chance to talk
- Acknowledge those who like to say more
- Make space for those who are quiet or need time
- Keep the discussion on topic
- Stay out of the weeds
- Capture key ideas and confirm with the group
Sample Questions to Facilitate Discussion
- Why do you care about this?
- What is special?
- What is most important to you?
- What is already working well?
- What needs to be improved?
- What will be different?
- Who will be affected?
- Who else needs to be included?
- Tell me more about...
Assessing Opportunities and Challenges
A SWOT Analysis is a tool for assessing opportunities and challenges. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The steering committee can use this tool during a meeting or have people fill it out individually. Answers should be discussed by the steering committee. This is a chance to look for gaps, missing information, and things to pay attention to.
Strengths:
- What do you value most about outdoor recreation in your community?
- Which outdoor recreation activities are the most unique here?
- Why do people come here to recreate?
- What is the biggest achievement for outdoor recreation?
Weaknesses:
- What could we do better?
- What types of outdoor recreation activities are missing?
- Who is not coming here to recreate?
- What infrastructure or resources are we lacking?
Opportunities:
- What trends are we seeing for outdoor recreation?
- Is there an unmet need for outdoor recreation that we can fill?
- Who has the resources to support outdoor recreation?
Threats:
- What are other communities doing better than us?
- What will get in the way of our goals?
- What policies are in place that could prevent this work?
- What outside forces do we need to consider?
Stakeholder Identification
The steering committee should engage people from across the community. But stakeholder engagement is different from general community engagement. Stakeholders have a special interest in the project's outcome. They may be business owners or community leaders. They may also be special populations like youth, people with disabilities, or the elderly. Stakeholder identification helps clarify outreach approaches.
Steering committee members have a network of people. This is a good place to start identifying stakeholders. It is also important to identify perspectives that are missing. Use the list below to decide if someone is a stakeholder:
- Does this person have information that is useful for the project?
- Does this person represent a group affected by the project?
- Will this person be able to provide input in a timely manner?
- Does this person have influence in the community?
- Do we need this person's buy-in to move forward?