Shoreline Village: A plan for aging in your home, Part Four

Dancing at a NEST Village event

{This is the last of a four-part series about the Village that is being planned for Shoreline.}

The Village is a membership-based organization with paid staff who act as a personal, central resource to coordinate access to services for you. The services will help you stay in your home as you age and could be provided by trained neighborhood volunteers, or you might be referred to screened vendors for more complex needs and services. Many Villages also offer social and activity groups.

A Village for Shoreline: Part Four

By Dori Gillam, Aging Your Way, Senior Services

dorig@seniorservices.org

How Does a Village Get Started?

If you care about your neighborhood, you can start a village. Here are the steps. Where do your skills and passions fit in?Form a planning committee of other people interested in starting a Village. The members need organizational development skills, which means a broad set of skills: meeting facilitation, budgeting and financial management, research, marketing, grant writing, community organizing, public speaking and promotion or salesmanship skills.

• Decide on governance structure: independent non-profit, fiscal sponsorship through an existing non-profit or program of the non-profit.
• Decide on name and geographical area.
• Membership Dues - develop a structure for dues and membership policies
• Develop a Budget – in addition to membership dues, include corporate sponsorships, foundation grants and major donors
• Raise a modest amount of money to hire someone who can start the process of recruiting members and working with the planning group to launch the village. Or find a volunteer with the skills and the time who can commit to about 15 hours per week for a year or more.

On average it takes about two years to launch a Village. This may seem like a long time, but if you want the Village to be owned by the community, you need this much time to develop it. Senior Services will be there to provide the support and guidance and supplement skills needed to create the village.

AgeWise King County posted this article a few months ago.

People in Shoreline have already had a couple of meetings to work on this. To join them, please contact Joanne Donohue at Senior Services joanned@seniorservices.org, 206-727-6206

See previous articles in this series

Part One

Part Two

Part Three