Overview

For your third competency project, the policy position presentation, you will be provided with a policy that has been heavily influenced by recent societal events and be tasked with determining how it has been influenced by and how it influences finance, programs, and organizations. You will take on one of the various roles of the public to analyze the policy and present your analysis from a stakeholder viewpoint. This assignment will allow you to examine the various stakeholder roles in that policy.

Prompt

For this assignment, you will be considering the perspectives of four different stakeholders in the policy scenario: a lobbyist (Laura Craft), an elite (Victor Morrison), a program administrator (Mary Jackson), and a budget/finance administrator (LaRon Branford). Review the policy scenario and complete the graphic organizer to articulate a value proposition for each of the stakeholders. You will need to put yourself in the shoes of each of these stakeholders and consider what they likely want from the policy issue under consideration. Your value propositions should follow the What Makes Strong Nonprofit Value Propositions section in Better Nonprofit Value Propositions Mean Better Results.

Specifically, you must address the critical elements listed below.

• Value Proposition for a Lobbyist: Create a clear and concise value proposition from the perspective of a lobbyist.
• Value Proposition for an Elite: Create a clear and concise value proposition from the perspective of an elite.
• Value Proposition for a Program Administrator: Create a clear and concise value proposition from the perspective of a program administrator.
• Value Proposition for a Budget/Finance Administrator: Create a clear and concise value proposition from the perspective of a budget/finance administrator.

A New Ice Hockey Arena for Midtown Midtown is a suburban community with approximately 30,000 residents. It is located about 20 miles from the downtown of Capital City, which has a population of about 800,000. It is also about 20 miles from College Park, a town that is home to a large public university. Their name Midtown is appropriate in that they try to take full advantage of their location as a mid-point between these two other communities. Mary Jackson is a programmatic administrator employed by the City of Midtown. She directs the citys economic development efforts. A few months back, Mary picked up on conversations in the community about increased interest in youth and adult hockey. The community has a vibrant amateur sports culture with lots of programming for both youth and adults. They have great infrastructure to support these sports-related interests, with a good number of soccer and baseball fields as well as gymnasiums for basketball and volleyball. This is not the case when it comes to hockey. There is a small outdoor ice rink in one of the Midtown parks, but that can only be used in the winter months and its use for hockey is limited because of the size and the need to accommodate those simply wanting to ice skate. Those interested in hockey have to travel the 20 miles to Capital City or College Park, where there are more public skating rinks suitable for hockey. Intrigued by that interest, Mary has started to have some conversations with those in Midtown as well as some stakeholders in the other two communities. Some of Marys conversations have been with a small group of people in College Park. The university there is considering adding hockey to their athletic program. Football and basketball have been a big part of the university for years. Hockey has been an intramural sport for over 20 years on the campus. Students organize teams and play on an outdoor rink during the winter months. A new hockey facility would be expensive and the university is hesitant to make that large an investment due to some other priority facilities needs. However, a wealthy graduate of the university, Victor Morrison, has indicated that he might be interested in providing a substantial donation to help support a new hockey program. Mr. Morrison is also very influential in state politics. He has never held office but has a long track record of helping to line up legislative support for issues and projects in which he is interested. Mary has also begun some discussions in nearby Capital City, where there is a professional minor league hockey team. She has been meeting with Laura Craft, the director of government affairs, who works for Capital Sports Corporation, an organization that promotes professional and amateur sports. The minor league hockey teams home rink is in a multi-use colosseum located in the heart of the city. The facility is also used as a concert and convention venue. The rink gets covered with a hard-surface floor for these other uses. The colosseum works fine for the hockey teams home games, but is not always available to accommodate their practice schedule. Laura, on behalf of Capital Sports Corporation, has been lobbying the state legislature for support to build the hockey team their own arena. As a result of these conversations, Mary is seeing the potential for a collaboration between Midtown, Capital City, and College Park to develop what she is tentatively calling the Midtown Icehouse. This would be a hockey complex that could be used for three different purposes: as a practice facility for the professional team from Capital City, as the home rink for the College Park University hockey team, and as a much-needed facility for the youth and adult hockey enthusiasts in Midtown. Representatives from the three communities have held a series of meetings and pooled resources to get a real estate developer to draw up some designs for a large plot of land in Midtown that has convenient interstate access that could accommodate convenience access to both Capital City and College Park. Theyve also put together a budget and estimated what the three interested parties could contribute. Philanthropist Victor Morrison has indicated he would be willing to invest $1 million in the new facility; he has also expressed interest in naming rights, and wants the facility to be called the Morrison Midtown Icehouse. Mary has been told by her city council that they, too, could contribute $1 million. Capital Sports Corporation has a fund to seed new ventures and could also contribute $1 million. The total of $3 million is short, however, of an estimated $10 million needed to develop the project. Mary, Victor, and Laura have considered several different options for raising the additional $7 million. One of those options would be the establishment of a new special-purpose taxing district that includes the three counties in which Midtown, Capital City, and College Park are located. There is a taxing mechanism that could be used to raise the hotel and restaurant tax to support tourism-related economic development projects. This, however, would require legislative action. The first hurdle to jump is to work with the states Legislative Services Bureau to develop a return on investment study. Mary has scheduled a meeting with Laura and LaRon Branford, a financial analyst with the Legislative Services Bureau. In the meeting with LaRon, he communicates to Laura that getting special-purpose taxing districts approved is difficult and getting a tax increase is even more difficult. LaRon seems to be something of a gatekeeper for the legislature. If he does not see clear demonstration of a solid return on investment, a proposal will never see the light of day. On the other hand, he could become a strong advocate. LaRon has agreed to help Laura and her team construct a scenario that will have the strongest chance of being successful. In a series of working sessions, Laura, LaRon, Mary, and Victor have developed a proposal to establish a special-purpose taxing district that includes the three counties and a one-cent increase in the hotel and restaurant tax bringing. Of this one-cent increase, a half cent will go to support the proposed project while the other half cent will be returned to the counties so that they can use these funds for other tourism-related economic development projects. LaRons calculations are that the $7 million needed for the hockey facility could be collected in five years, and he suggests that the proposed special-purpose taxing district and tax increase be set to sunset after five years. LaRon has also been satisfied that there will be a significant return on this investment. There will be two hurdles ahead of this group. One will be to get the special-purpose taxing district approved by the state legislature. The second will require a referendum vote on the ballots of the next election. A majority of voters in the three counties will have to approve of the one-cent increase in the restaurant and hotel tax.