This is truly an exciting time for Brunswick. The sense of optimism and dynamism is enormous as we welcome newcomers of all ages and backgrounds. Forward Brunswick, which began with community meetings in 2019 and 2020, is now incorporated and ready to hear from the community as to how we can effectively support this encouraging revival.

Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant and public philosopher, has stated that every nonprofit should ask five questions. His book The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization is designed to be used for organizational strategic self-assessment, not for program assessment for an individual performance review. It addresses the question of the organization’s reason for being, its purpose, not the how. Here are my thoughts as to how Drucker’s Five Questions apply to our exciting work at Forward Brunswick:

What is our Mission? Our mission is to advocate people-centric initiatives to foster economic vitality. We focus on the quality-of-life areas of diverse housing types, attractive surroundings, and available community amenities. We network and partner to seek and assist with solutions to provide an exceptional standard of living as identified by the community for residents, visitors, and stakeholders.

Who is our Customer? Beginning with our community engagement activities during the assessment phase of strategic planning and through subsequent gatherings and online surveys, we will be identifying citizens, elected officials, and businesses that we see as vital to our continued progress and success.

What does the Customer Value? This involves asking the right questions of a variety of citizens from all walks of life. What community amenities do they value, what local activities would they like to see, and is government meeting their needs?

What are our Results? We will regularly report on our activities and ask for feedback from the community. We will seek to broaden our Board of Directors to ensure inclusion of a broad-based representative group.

What is our Plan? Our plan for the next three years will be designed based on information gained from multiple sources. We will be meeting in a strategic planning session in late August with a group of representative citizens guided by a skilled professional facilitator. This plan will include specific goals based on feedback received during our formation process. This document will be published once we have concluded our planning process.

It’s truly exciting for us to be embarking on this important mission. We want to hear from as many interested citizens as possible to ensure our goals speak to the dreams and aspirations of everyone!

Our overriding intention is not to compete with anyone but to be a supportive force in the Brunswick community.

Thank you,
Ben Slade
Chair of the Board of Directors