Job Description Urban Agriculture Visioning Group Facilitator
Since the passing of Article 89 (the City’s first urban agriculture zoning) in December, 2013 supporters of urban growing have begun to provide resources, prepare farms, and train farmers in the name of advancing urban agriculture in Boston.  These supporters come from the public, private, and non-profit sectors, representing growers, processors, and distributors.  The City of Boston Office of Food Initiatives, through a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, seeks to hire an outside facilitator to bring these diverse organizations together in an Urban Agriculture Visioning Group so as to find a common vision for growing in Boston that meets the needs of all stakeholders involved.

Our goal is to enable farmer livelihoods, provide multiple access points for food, and determine how to create food access for low-income constituents. The group will include advocates from all sectors of urban growing in the city, including community gardeners, transactional farmers, gleaners, edible forest developers, farmers’ market reps, traditional and rooftop farmers, and food processors. 

The facilitator will help extract ideas, help create a strategic plan and help the group develop priorities. Over the course of roughly a year, the Urban Agriculture Visioning Group will meet monthly to develop a vision for food production in Boston as a whole. The facilitator will handle all of the planning for each meeting, facilitate the meeting, and evaluate the success of the group.

He/she will also use those evaluations to steer the group toward an action plan that addresses every partner’s needs.  He/she will plan each meeting, gather materials, collect and record data, and survey group members to make sure that the visioning group is working as effectively as possible.  After the first two meetings, the facilitator will create and distribute a survey to members of the visioning group which will assess the group’s progress and will determine changes that should be made.  The facilitator will create and distribute a survey every three months after this.

The ultimate goals of the project are:

• Establish a strategic plan for supporting Urban Agriculture in the City of Boston, which meets the needs of all stakeholders involved
• Determine project goals, and performance metrics/milestones, as part of the “vision” for urban agriculture in Boston
• Within the goals and metrics, assign strategies to participating organizations, aligning skills and expertise with interest

The Visioning Group is expected to include:

• A steering committee
  • The goal of the steering committee is to provide guidance to the urban agriculture vision in Boston, leveraging committee-member buy-in to work towards achieving established goals
• Interested and engaged public
  • Boston residents are an engaged, civically minded, and vocal constituency. The Visioning Group meetings will be open to the public and will allow for and include those interested and engaged constituents in this visioning process.
• Informal constituent interviews
  • Outside of the steering committee and visioning sessions, the facilitator will be expected to interview community, government, and business stakeholders, to inform development of the vision/plan

The principal tasks for the Facilitator will include:

• Finding a common vision for growing in Boston that meets the needs of all stakeholders involved
• Interview and invite members to a steering committee
• Create a meeting structure that balances the work of the Steering Committee with input from interested parties in attendance at these meetings
• Plan all meetings of the visioning group, ensuring that all constituents are able to “come to the table,” by creating an open environment and an inclusive schedule
• Reserve and set up meeting rooms and any necessary equipment
• Conduct research prior to each meeting in order to effectively facilitate discussion
• Facilitate discussion at meetings, take notes, and provide draft and final meeting summaries
• Create and distribute a survey every two months assessing the progress of the visioning group towards the pre-established goals
• Provide a Midterm report to the Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) detailing activities performed and milestones achieved by the visioning group, and an outline of work to be performed during the successive period
• Provide LFPP with a Final Report detailing a summary of results and conclusions, a discussion of benefits derived from the project, and recommendations for future research

Consultants and individuals applying for this position will be evaluated on:

• A proven track record facilitating community-wide discussions
• Understanding of urban agriculture in general, as well as familiarity with Boston’s urban growing environment
• Ability to facilitating large groups, aligning stakeholder interests and expertise, and forming a unified vision and goal
• Comfort interviewing and engaging a wide variety of constituents, to ensure all interests and opinions are considered
• Understanding of data-driven strategic plan writing and implementation
• Capability to commit to a year-long project

Funding Available:

• Funding for this position is made available through the Local Food Promotion Program, at the United States Department of Agriculture.
• The funding limit for this project is $24,999.

Compensation this position is : contract How to apply Deadlineno deadline