UPDATE ON THE COOK COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETIES ALLIANCE STUDY

The Cook County historical societies of Schroeder, Tofte, Gunflint Trail, and Grand Marais have partnered to work on collaboration and to explore options for continued success in our respective areas of responsibility.

Since beginning of this endeavor, we have chosen Superior Design + Planning to facilitate the study.  With their guidance, we have completed Phase I: we established a mutual understanding and chose a “consensus decision-making process” by which we conduct our meetings. This process helped us to agree upon our core vision and values.

In Phase II, each organization shared planning documents and financial information - as well as documents detailing our culture, programming, and programs.  From this collection, a Findings Report was created from which we could better understand the collaborative partnership options and possible benefits.

In Phase III, we discussed and finalized scenarios with the goal of forming a continuum of options and decision criteria. From here, we progressed to scenario selection, as well as any needed operational and implementation planning.

Phase IV brought a provisional recommended option where we chose to continue our work as an alliance beyond the original study. Phase V operationalized the alliance and gave us the opportunity to include other historical groups in our alliance. We will continue to work together to synergistically form ideas and develop, implement, and evaluate projects.

This process and opportunity is so timely for all of us.  We all recognize and acknowledge the responsibility of each of our organizations to preserve history – inclusive of all peoples, cultures, and time periods - for future generations.