Paul Roback was contacted by the leadership of the Ozaukee Master Gardeners, a local nonprofit, to facilitate a process that would engage members in a discussion of the organization’s mission statement.  Board leadership wanted members to identify ways in which the organization is currently meeting its mission and new ideas that the leadership of the organization could consider for engaging members to further the mission.

Paul met with the organization’s Executive Board to further understand their needs and plan a process that would engage members in discussing new opportunities to fulfill the organization’s mission and strategies to increase membership involvement.  After this meeting, members were invited to a Membership Engagement Roundtable session.  Twenty-two members attended the session where Paul facilitated a process that engaged members in discussing what excites them about being a member, ways in which the organization is doing a good job at fulfilling its mission, opportunities to further the mission, and what would inspire participants to be more involved with the organization. After the session, Paul developed a report summarizing the discussion and recommendations for the organization to consider.  Paul then met with the organization’s Executive Board to discuss the report and recommendations. 

Through evaluation (N=21), 100% participants agreed that the session identified opportunities for the Ozaukee Master Gardeners to explore in the future and 90% agreed that the session identified opportunities to increase their participation with the organization.  Additionally, 100% strongly agreed that the session allowed them the opportunity to share their ideas while also allowing others to share their thoughts.  Overall, participants evaluated Paul’s facilitation a 4.9 on a 5-point Likert Scale (1=poor and 5=excellent).