Quad Cities Regional Vision

“Form 990 will be reviewed by executive director and executive committee of the board prior to filing with the irs.”

“All organization actions are monitored by the board of directors and executive director for compliance with written conflict of interest policy.”

“Board of directors sets executive director pay and benefits in comparison to similar job titles and duties in outside organizations.”

“Pay for key employees (1 in this organization) was determined by the board of directors using comparisions to similar job titles and duties in other organizations.”

“Documents available upon request.”

“The quad cities region is comprised of multiple municipalities located in illinois and iowa. Having multiple jurisdictions and oversight entities has resulted in fragmented and duplicative use of scarce resources diminishing regional success. There is not an independent entity that seeks to enhance collaboration, coordination, and alignment to accelerate successes which will grow the region and reduce the barriers to success. Areas of focus for alignment, collaboration and coordination include education, employment skill building, childcare, food security, poverty, housing, business development, health, placemaking, and philanthropy. Quad cities regional vision (q2030) is an independent organization that convenes multiple stakeholders to resolve issues, develop and implement strategies to strengthen the region. The framework tackles tough issues facing the bi-state region and leverages opportunities with the best odds to foster transformational change. The issues fall into four priority themes which each make up 25% of the organization's activities: cool places: create strong, attractive and functional places in which quad citizens live. Creative people: provide young people and workers with the skills and competencies to contribute to the economy and the community. Connected region: come together to help one another in new ways to improve efficiencies, attitudes, and perceptions. Prosperous economy: use the region's strengths to retain, attract, and create business and jobs purpose, vision, mission by 2030 transform the quad cities region into a broadly prosperous and equitable community that provides a high quality of life and place for all quad citizens. The quad cities is recognized globally in 2030 for growing and attracting talent and businesses, is energized by a diverse and culturally rich community, inspires innovation and embraces lifelong learning. Ignite the transformational change in the quad cities region necessary to realize our vision which requires intensified and focused regional collaboration to achieve. We will execute this mission by prioritizing the following activities: articulate and evangelize a compelling vision of the quad cities region in 2030, identify the most insoluble obstacles to achieving the 2030 vision, develop 2-3 big idea initiatives that obliterate these obstacles and move the vision forward”

“The board of directors spent the last 12 months standing up this new organization by meticulously building a board that represents the community it serves and ensuring a rich and diverse mix of experience, skills, civic involvement, abilities, industry, geography, age, gender, race, etc. Staff have been hired (executive director and project manager) and a strategic plan has been approved. The executive director spends most of their time right now meeting with community stakeholders and making connections with key organizations and initiatives that align with quad cities region vision goals to better understand issues facing the region, resources available and gaps that exist.”

“Our largest program expenses for 2021 were related to a board goal setting session and a diversity, equity, and inclusion training-- both of which were used as the basis for the work plan that was designed for the next 2-3 years. Our work plan consists of 4 key initiatives: 1) riverfront: increase utilization and opportunities on the riverfront to create a world class destination, which allows us to capitalize on our greatest natural resource to improve quality of place while also serving as an economic engine for our region. We will achieve this by acting as a unifier to combine the unique riverfront plans of each of our communities into one regional vision that excites our community and encourages further investment and utilization. 2) youth engagement: increase the number of students who report that the region provides quality opportunities for them to be successful, because we know all youth need to feel safe, have places to engage with one another, access to education programming aligned to career aspirations, and understanding of opportunities for success within the region. We will achieve this by fostering collaboration between employers, municipalities, community partners and educational partners to increase safety, have amenities for socialization, quality education and career exploration activities. 3) child care workforce: fill gaps in training to expand the number of early childhood educators and childcare professionals in our region, which helps fulfill regional workforce goals by increasing the number of parents in the workforce while also helping to fill current and future demand for early education and childcare professionals. We will work with regional stakeholders to identify best practices and programs that can be shared and scaled up in our region. 4) welcoming and inclusive: we will work to become a model for inclusivity by not only embodying inclusion in our work, but also by encouraging stakeholders to participate in inclusive practices to help enrich the quality of community efforts and initiatives from the inclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups. We will work to develop and share resources and opportunities for the community to improve inclusive practices. Our overarching mission is to continue working across state borders to create an engrained mindset of regional collaboration to help expand opportunity for our communities individually and as a region, which will be accomplished by amplifying and increasing regional collaboration through the encouragement of multidisciplinary partnerships and the sharing of best practices.”