Leadership Evansville today announced that it has received the Excellence in Innovation Award from the Association of Leadership Programs (ALP) for its VOICE community visioning and change initiative. Lynn Miller Pease, Chief Executive Officer for Leadership Evansville, will accept the award this Friday evening, June 23, 2017, at the Association of Leadership Programs 2017 National Conference, June 22-24, 2017 at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona. Miller-Pease also will lead the conference workshop session “Transformation Through Connection and Collaboration†on Friday.
Leadership Evansville’s VOICE initiative earned the Excellence in Innovation Award for “demonstrating a community-wide process to bring together all members of our community in facilitator-led group discussions to capture, draw out, and carry forward a broad range of ideas and visions for Evansville’s future.â€
Leadership Evansville Launched the VOICE initiative in 2012 in partnership with the City of Evansville Mayor’s Office and Mayor Lloyd Winnecke. It’s community visioning sessions enabled participants to have inspiring conversations about their hopes and dreams for our community. VOICE ensured that everyone’s ideas were shared, documented, and made available to the public on a special VOICE website. Over 3,000 people took part in the 32 initial visioning sessions across the community at different times and in neutral locations that enabled it to hear from a diverse population.
Commenting on the award, Leadership Evansville CEO Lynn Miller-Pease said, “We are thrilled to receive this national recognition from ALP! What an incredible honor for LE – and Evansville – to be recognized for the VOICE initiative, and especially during 2017. This year, Leadership Evansville is celebrating our 40th Anniversary of bringing together diverse servant leaders transforming our community!â€
Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke – who partnered with Leadership Evansville to launch VOICE in 2012 – offered his congratulations to Leadership Evansville: “Knowing the transformative impact VOICE has had on the strong momentum building in Evansville, it is a tremendous honor to see this initiative receive national recognition from the Association of Leadership Programs this week. I am excited to see the many positive outcomes that the next phase of VOICE will generate here in Evansville and across our neighboring Tri-State communities.â€
Now Leadership Evansville is laying out plans to take VOICE to the next level in 2017 by initiating the process to implement VOICE in five counties – Vanderburgh, Posey, Gibson and Warrick, Indiana; and Henderson, Kentucky. This effort will include visioning and strategic action on a large scale, with everyone visioning their preferred future for the region!
Previous Awards for VOICE
Leadership Evansville’s VOICE initiative has been previously recognized for its innovation and impact by two Indiana organizations.  In 2015, AIM (formerly the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns) named Evansville’s VOICE initiative the recipient of its Community Achievement Award for transformational impact at the regional level. In August 2015, the Indiana Leadership Association (ILA) named Leadership Evansville the recipient of its 2015 Excellence in Innovation Award.
Community Impact
Since 2012, VOICE-inspired servant-leader-led projects have made a phenomenal impact on the community, including:
- ParksFest, a popular volunteer-led free outdoor music and arts festival attracting over 15,000 people ;
- Franklin Street Bazaar, the weekly Spring-through-Fall outdoor farmers market extravaganza with arts and crafts, entertainment, and food;
- Bryce’s Basket, the community-wide gleaning process to collect locally-grown garden produce (over 900 lbs.) and distribute it to those in need.
In addition, organizations and agencies throughout the region have used VOICE visions and information to shape their long-term planning, goal-setting, and strategies, ensuring that our citizens’ hopes and dreams for the community have real impact today and into the future. Examples include the Regional Cities Initiative, Promise Zone Grant Proposal, METS Transportation Study, Downtown Master Plan, Evansville-area Trails Coalition Bike Share Program, and Evansville’s process to secure the IU Medical School in downtown Evansville, to name a few.
About Association of Leadership Programs (ALP):
ALP is a national organization that strives to recognize excellence, foster innovation, share best practices, build networks with colleagues, and provide educational training and development to advance the effectiveness of community leadership programs and professionals.
About Leadership Evansville
Leadership Evansville was founded in 1976 by a group of future-thinking local leaders, whose original commitment to community-wide betterment remains unique and strong. Leadership Evansville brings together people with different talents, gifts and perspectives and transforms these individuals into leaders who embrace the concept of community trusteeship and the collaborative process. They help develop in them an understanding of how today’s leaders function and teaches them the skills to apply this knowledge in provided real life opportunities through practice and performance. These attitudes, skills and processes are taught to adults, youth, organizations, not-for-profits, businesses, educational institutions, neighborhood associations, churches, and other leadership programs.
