eXtension Announces New Fellowship Opportunity: Technology in Extension Education and Organizations Fellow Funded by the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) Project

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The purpose of this Fellowship is to catalyze adoption and awareness of new educational technologies and practices among professionals in the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service. The Fellow will serve as editor of a peer-reviewed publication and leader of related professional development offerings with production and technical assistance of the eXtension Foundation. The Fellow will work in alignment with a new Futuring Panel for Technology in Extension Education and Organizations. This panel will be preparing a separate trend report of technology use in the practices of Extension professionals and in Extension organizations.

The Fellow will lead the offering of at least 4 synchronous online professional development opportunities and serve as editor of Version 1 of the Technology in Extension Education and Organization eFieldbook to be published with eXtension no later than June 1, 2020. The eXtension eFieldbook is a digital platform for aggregating content, tools and engagement available to all professionals in Cooperative Extension. The professional development will use the eXtension social intranet platform called FlexLearn.

Responsibilities:

  • Serve in the role of editor of the eFieldbook Version 1 and identify a review group and authors/contributors and follow the publication guidelines of eXtension.
  • Identify and offer 4 online professional development opportunities in the form of learning circles, webinars or other synchronous, online awareness-building and skill-building experiences for Extension professionals using eXtension’s FlexLearn platform. 
  • eXtension provides technical assistance and serves as publisher of the eFieldbook. The Journal of Extension provides peer review. eXtension also provides technical support and marketing for the 4 professional development offerings.  

Reporting and Stipend:

  • The Fellow will report to the eXtension Foundation COO. eXtension will provide $5,000 to support this work to the Fellow or the Fellow’s institution, depending on the best way to handle the funds for the institution. 

Duration:

  • Beginning on, our near November 1, 2019 to August 1, 2019.

Apply

To apply for this fellowship, please submit the following information to Brenna Kotar, Assistant to the CEO, eXtension Foundation, ceoassistant@extension.org:

  • Cover Letter
  • Resume
  • Three professional references, including email and phone number contact

 

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Announcement of eXtension Foundation Pesticide Safety Education Funds Management Program (PSEFMP) Funding Opportunity for 2020

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The eXtension Foundation (eX) is pleased to announce a funding opportunity for Pesticide Safety Education Programs (PSEP) for 2020. This opportunity is made available through a cooperative agreement (X8-83698001) with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish and administer a national sub-award program in support of pesticide applicator education, and training for certified applicators of restricted use pesticides. The National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC) will continue to support as an unfunded collaborator with eX to lead the professional development part of the project and to assist PSEPs in enhancing some of the educational products they develop as part of the expectations attached to the funding.

Requirements of sub-awardees for this program to receive funding are as follows:

    • agree to share one educational deliverable for the purposes of enhancing PSEP programs both regionally and nationally. 
    • submit progress reports every six (6) months using a standard online webform. 
    • attend a minimum of one 1-hour training webinars for the reporting system. Anticipated dates are: January 31, 2020 at 3 pm EST; May 6, 2020 at 1 pm EST; September 30, 2020 at 3 pm EST and December 2, 2020 at 3:00 pm EST.  

Eligibility

In order to be eligible for this funding applicants must be affiliated with a U.S. Land Grant University. Only one application per state or territory will be eligible for funding and preference will go to 1862 Land Grant Universities. Please contact psefmp-helpdesk@extension.org if you have any questions regarding eligibility.

Funding Period

The funding period for this sub award will be January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020.

Funding Available

Each PSEP will be eligible to apply for a base amount of $17,200.00 USD plus an additional 5% of the funds divided proportionally based on the percentage of the number of certified applicators in each state or territory. The number of certified applicators in a state or territory will be based on the most recent figures of certified applicators as supplied by the EPA. Additional amounts available to the state or territory will be listed in the budget section of the application. Payments to successful sub-awardees will be made January 3 – 15, 2020.

Key Dates:

Application System Opens: Monday, September 16, 2019 at 8 am EST

First round of reviews: September 27, 2019

Second round of reviews: October 28, 2019

Application Deadline: Friday, November 15, 2019 at 8 pm EST

Final round of reviews: November 22, 2019

Sub-award Notification Announcement: December 13, 2019

Funds distributed by: January 15, 2020

Application Review Process: 

eX will use a multi-step approach in the receiving and review of applications for this program. Each application will be reviewed by eX and an advisory committee including representatives from NPSEC, AAPCO, AAPSE, PERC and the PSEP community for eligibility, compliance, completeness and potential collaboration. 

Application Submission

In an effort to make the application process as streamlined and user friendly as possible, applicants will be able to download, sign, scan, and upload the sub-award agreement from the application site. Applications that have not been signed will not be considered for funding. The average time for completion of an application is 45 minutes.

Applications for this funding opportunity can be accessed at the following link on September 16, 2019 at 8:00 am EST: https://applyextension.smapply.io 

Online Application System Training:

PSEPs will receive an invitation for optional training via Zoom for September 16, 2019 at 11 am and 3 pm EST for the online application system. During training, eX will provide a step by step walk through of the application site, application and submission. For those who are unable to attend the training, it will be recorded and sent via email to view at your convenience. Additional training sessions will also be held the same week.

Applicants with any questions please send an email to psefmp-helpdesk@extension.org. 

About eXtension Foundation

The United States Cooperative Extension System, with funding from Cooperative Extension directors and administrators, and USDA-NIFA, shares resources and tools through eXtension that enables the Extension workforce to scale up its local and national impact. eXtension is an integral part of the national Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) and is organized as a 501(c)3 non-profit membership organization. Its Board of Directors represents the five regions of Cooperative Extension, ECOP, and USDA-NIFA.

About National Pesticide Safety Education Center

NPSEC seeks to strengthen the national system of university extension Pesticide Safety Education Programs by improving the quality, consistency, and accessibility of educational offerings, promoting collaboration and leveraging of educational resources and learning assessment tools, and increasing revenue generation. NPSEC does not receive any EPA funding under the EPA eXtension Foundation cooperative agreement.

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Ask Extension: Applying Artificial Intelligence to Extension Results of an initial landscape overview

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Read the full report here.

Summary

U.S. Cooperative Extension provides useful, relevant, local, research-based, information to citizens throughout the country. Modern affordances like web searches, email, and instant messaging have built the expectation that information and services are available in real time and via the Internet–today’s primary source of information.

The local, nuanced, time-sensitive information that Extension and the Land Grant Universities provide exists, but can be difficult to find. Even more, the best resources are currently distributed across many data sources: e.g. Land Grant University information pages, Cooperative Extension websites and databases, Regional Integrated Pest Management Centers, Regional Rural Development Centers, and even eXtension’s massive “Ask an Expert” database of questions and answers. 

This investigation looks at one solution to the problem of information fragmentation and “findability” of research-based answers with local relevance: the creation of a distributed Ask Extension data registry and search interfaces. This solution would pull together data sources from throughout the Extension ecosystem to answer questions directly and accurately and connect local citizens with their local Extension professionals, products, and services.

Advances in technology such as machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and related data tools present the possibility of capitalizing upon this opportunity, by offering smart and localized access to the addressable research-based information. In addition, they offer long-term scalability that will answer common questions immediately, providing 24/7/365 availability of Extension resources. 

Read the full report here.

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What is Customer Relationship Management and why would Extension care?

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Stephen Judd is serving as the eXtension Foundation Customer Relationship Management Fellow. This post is an update on progress on this funded Fellowship from the USDA-NIFA New Technologies for Agricultural Extension (NTAE) Cooperative Agreement.

CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is used to keep a record of an organization or company’s interactions with a person or business, record information about the person or business, such as, contact information, and share that information with other users. The overall goal of CRM is to increase an organization’s knowledge and understanding of the people they deal with.

In a recent survey (June & July 2019), people (188 responses) from approximately 63 different Extension organizations responded to questions about CRM usage at their organization. When asked about current usage of CRM at their Extension organization, respondents reported 30 currently use CRM, 36 are evaluating using it, and 35 have no plans at this time. The numbers don’t add up to the 63 total organizations, likely because the usage is not uniform across each organization.

I’ll delve into the details of the survey in a later post, but consider that over 45% of the Extension organizations responding report currently using CRM and another 30% are currently evaluating using it. Approximately 20% of the Extension organizations represented indicated they had no plans to use CRM. This would seem to indicate that most Extension organizations perceive some value in the use of CRM.

Where’s the value?

If a company sells widgets, and they implement CRM, and profits or sales increase, then they may be able to attribute the increase to CRM usage. They may track metrics like lead conversion, time to close deals, opportunities won and lost, and more. In Extension, we rarely have similar metrics that we track. The widget company may be able to justify the cost (licenses, support, training) of CRM with the increased sales. Extension may incur similar costs, but since we tend to be less revenue-driven, the benefits may come in less tangible terms.

So if it isn’t, necessarily, about increasing revenue for Extension, what benefit is there? Here are some of the “biggest wins” that survey respondents listed:

  • People / Relationships / Marketing
    • better understand how people are engaging with us
    • streamlined categorization of stakeholders
    • working especially well for our government relations team
    • useful for volunteer management
  • Data
    • allow significant amount of data on individual or company
    • improved security of data
    • collecting info that quickly accessible on our prospects & clients
    • stable and sustainable system for documents, contacts, records
    • merge many lists and platforms into one list
  • Sharing / Consolidation
    • provide access to shared data that once was stored separately
    • consolidation and management of contact data in one place for remote access by multiple admins
    • allows us to track everything in one place
  • Marketing
    • coordinating marketing and public relations with programmatic work
    • data- driven decision making about marketing and ability to use data to describe impact (intro graphics and professional graphics backed up by real-time data)
    • having emails for campaigns to market upcoming programs
    • streamlining our communications, giving a consistent look to all of our email marketing, and quantifying the impact of our communication efforts
  • E-Commerce
    • ability to take payments and no longer need to handle cash/checks at workshops and events
    • leaving behind the “cash” culture in favor of online electronic payments

Given the diversity across Extension organizations and the large number of CRM systems available to choose from, how would one go about the process of evaluating CRM usage for Extension. That will be the thread woven through the subsequent posts in this series. I will forewarn you that there is no cookie-cutter template to pull off the shelf, but there are some guiding principles and processes that can be used.

I welcome feedback and questions at stephen.judd@unh.edu or in the comments section below.

Stephen Judd is serving as a funded eXtension Fellow this year to investigate and report on CRM applications in Cooperative Extension.

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Utah State University HEART Team solidifies vision, reinforces project planning at Impact Collaborative Summit

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Taking action to help communities across Utah in response the opioid epidemic is a critical priority. The HEART Team’s focus on Harm Reduction Education is one important component of our response to the epidemic. The time this team spent with the Impact Collaborative allowed them to form a vision and strategy for their project, test their ideas, and get equipped with skills and tools that helped innovate a new project idea from the ground up with real potential for saving lives and increasing awareness of programs available to our communities across Utah. – Dr. Brian Higginbotham, Associate Vice President of Extension, Utah State University

The United States, including Utah, is in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic. As a state, Utah has consistently ranked in the top ten of deaths from opioid overdose. Although Utah has taken steps to respond to the opioid crisis, Substance Use Disorders (SUD) continue to impact many lives. The use of government programs to reduce opioid use has been met with questionable success due to the lack of focus on individual communities. One method of research that is not well-known to the general population and has shown to be effective is Harm Reduction programming. Harm Reduction is the idea that recognizes the challenges of completely stopping individuals from using substances, but provides services that will keep the user safer and healthier until the time comes that they may want to stop using a substance and seek assistance. 

The Health Extension: Advocacy Research Teaching (HEART Initiative) Team from Utah State University represents various communities across Utah in 9 counties. They have identified four pillars in the fight against the opioid crisis in their communities and across the state as (1) Harm Reduction, (2) Strengthening Community Ties, (3) Prevention and Education, and (4) Stigma Reduction. Additionally, the team has identified a major need to increase Harm Reduction Education in those communities. Looking to increase the awareness of communities across Utah, the HEART team is looking to create a video education series focused on Harm Reduction. 

The team members include Dr. Ashley Yaugher, Extension Assistant Professor, Health & Wellness; Timothy Keady, Extension Assistant Professor, Health & Wellness; Dr. Maren Voss, Extension Assistant Professor; Reshma Arrington, Extension Assistant Professor; Kandice Atisme, Extension Assistant Professor; and Dr. Mateja Savoie Roskos, Associate Professor of Nutrition Dietetics & Food Sciences. 

According to Keady, “our first year as an Extension team focused on opioids, we have found communities filled with anger, compassion, devastation, love, mistrust, stigma and bias, confusion, thankfulness, and shame towards opioids and those with Substance Use Disorder. Our Harm Reduction video series will begin to connect all of these emotions to professional staff and members of the community that really care and can help. For many in the healthcare field, treating SUD is a driving passion. Too many community members have suffered in silence due to the stigma of substance use. The videos will provide a conversation starter in the community.”

Joining the Impact Collaborative

The HEART Team first joined the Impact Collaborative in April 2019 at the Impact Collaborative Summit. The Impact Collaborative is a program that was created by eXtension to help Extension professionals find more innovative ways to generate a visible, measurable, local impact. It achieves this through offering professional development opportunities to Extension professionals both virtually and face-to-face, connecting Extension professionals with non-traditional partners for strategic support and new capacity, and equipping Extension professionals with new skills, tools, and resources to help increase innovation in their daily work. 

At the Impact Collaborative Summit, the team had the opportunity to work closely on their project with access to key resources assembled by eXtension. The team was provided a coach from the Impact Collaborative’s network of Innovation Facilitators, several Key Informants on staff with subject-matter-expertise in specialized areas, and the opportunity to work in our Innovation Labs with access to graphic recorders and concept-mapping experts. 

Team lead, Dr. Yaugher stated “We really enjoyed being at the Summit. Not only did it provide us focused and dedicated time as a team – but it allowed us to develop relationships with all of our team members to both unify and solidify our program. We found the Innovation Stations at the Summit to be particularly helpful, and we made it a point to attend each of them. We went from having a basic illustration of our idea at the visualization station to a much more detailed infographic. That really helped us solidify the main areas of our program in a way that’s easy to understand. The coaches, the visualization stations, the Key Informants – all of that, you don’t have access to everyday. Having that all in one place was very helpful.” 

At the Summit, the team also had the opportunity to leverage the Impact Collaborative’s Innovation Kit Workbook for help guiding their project development. The Innovation Skill-Building methodology helps Extension professionals build skills in innovation, create opportunities for ideation through a design-thinking and lean experimentation process, and create action plans for projects and programs ready for implementation. “We really enjoyed the Impact Collaborative Innovation Workbook and the Innovation Canvas, and found it particularly useful. Those resources ensured that we were all on the same page and moving in the same direction,” said Dr. Yaugher. 

The Summit included 26 teams across Extension representing 34 land-grant universities. An important aspect of the Impact Collaborative framework is co-creating solutions for community impact and the opportunity for teams to collaborate on a national scale to help better inform project and program planning. Dr. Yaugher shared that “the coolest thing about the Impact Collaborative is the environment with teams from across Extension coming together, and feeling that energy in the room with everybody working towards a final product – you can’t get that anywhere else. The opportunity to network and collaborate with other teams across the country, and seeing what other Extension professionals are doing in similar work is really unique. After the Summit, we’ve continued to connect and collaborate with other teams and individuals.”

The culminating event of the Impact Collaborative Summit was an opportunity for teams to present their projects and programs to a panel of Extension leaders and external partners at a “LaunchFest.” Teams participating in the LaunchFest not only gain valuable feedback from the panel and their peers across Extension, but teams that are most-ready to implement their projects and programs have the chance to secure an opportunity for funding. As a result of their presentation at the LaunchFest, the HEART  team received a pre-approved application for a $5000 grant funded by eXtension to move their project towards implementation. 

Moving Towards Implementation

The grant will allow the HEART team to plan the Harm Reduction Video Education Series where they will pursue additional funding through a separate grant in the fall, 2019. The team has contact with experienced members of the Utah State University Marketing Video Production Staff who will assist in producing and editing the proposed video series. Looking forward, the team is looking to strengthen partnerships with the Utah Department of Health (UDOH), UDOH Injury Prevention, and the UDOH Division of Substance and Mental Health around the consensus that Harm Reduction is an area of concern that needs to be strengthened. 

Want to learn more? Follow the HEART Team’s progress on their website: https://extension.usu.edu/heart/index

About the eXtension Foundation

The eXtension Foundation is a membership-based non-profit designed to be the engine fueling U.S. Cooperative Extension’s advancement in making a more visible and measurable impact in support of education outreach from land-grant universities/colleges located in every state and territory. eXtension provides an array of opportunities for Extension professionals that foster innovation creation, the adoption of innovations at member institutions, and increased impact of Extension programs.

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eXtension’s Impact Collaborative helps ‘Sustain the Sustainers’ for Multi-State Initiative, USDA-NIFA

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Sustainability is one of our strategic priorities. 200 participants representing 33 institutions alongside 10 community partners participated in the NSS + NEES event resulting in inspiring and motivating speakers, new knowledge gained among participants, and new connections developed across organizations. The Impact Collaborative Summits were unique opportunities for this team to engage more deeply in reaching new and more diverse audiences, strategic planning for cultivating new partnerships, and finding new and innovative avenues for increasing local impact. – Dr. Nick Place, Dean and Director for the University of Florida/IFAS Extension Service

Participation in eXtension’s Impact Collaborative Summit helped provide new strategies for planning, audience and partnership engagement, and program delivery for a multi-state team from the University of Florida, Florida A&M, Washington State University, and North Dakota State University. The team, National Sustainability Summit, is addressing complex sustainability issues across the nation. They achieve this through the National Sustainability Summit (NSS) and the National Extension Energy Summit (NEES). These events are in partnership with USDA-NIFA and other community partners. 

The NSS + NEES event was held in April 2019 and brought leading sustainability and energy educators and practitioners together to showcase land-grant university Extension and Research program successes, share challenges, and identify opportunities with expertise in sustainability and energy issues.

Becoming an Impact Collaborative Program Team

The National Sustainability team first joined eXtension’s Impact Collaborative in October 2018 for the first Impact Collaborative Summit. The Impact Collaborative Summit is an eXtension membership benefit where teams from across Extension come together to strengthen community engagement, engage partnerships, strengthen program planning, increase program innovation, and develop strategies to effectively engage new audiences. 

According to Dave Ripplinger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University and the state’s bioenergy and bioproducts economist, “the Impact Collaborative Summit we attended in October 2018 gave us the opportunity to think more strategically about what we were doing…the assistance that the Impact Collaborative provided us not only impacted the folks in attendance at our event in Tampa, but also back in our communities.”

As a result of their work at the October 2018 Impact Collaborative Summit and their participation in the PitchFest, a place for teams to present their projects and programs to a panel of leaders from Cooperative Extension and partners from external organizations, National Sustainability Summit received the Urgent Community Need Award. This award provided the National Sustainability team strategic coaching support from the eXtension partnership development team, and an all-expenses paid trip to the next Impact Collaborative Summit. 

Strategic coaching support with the team focused on strengthening goals and anticipated outcomes of the Summit; clarifying external partner benefits and opportunities for sponsorship; and, defining considerations for sustaining the Summit for the future, including staffing and co-creation opportunities with partners. 

Deepening Program Planning & Engagement

The team reconnected with the Impact Collaborative after the NSS + NEES event by participating in the April 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit. Jennison Kipp Searcy, Resource Economist with the University of Florida, shared that “the goal of us attending the April 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit was to make sure that the NSS + NEES event was not just a one-off event. We were looking to leverage the momentum we had from all the resources, energy, and thought that went into the NSS + NEES event, and start looking at how to extend that to new partners, existing partners, and work products that can translate into action.”

The backbone of the the April 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit was a framework focused on propelling community impact. Teams were asked to first take a look at their target audiences to inform their program or project development. In many cases, teams were able to identify new audiences to engage that they had not thought of before. “Because of the Impact Collaborative, we’re going to be more deliberate in engaging the 1890 and 1994 communities to increase our ability to reach a more diverse audience. It also made us think about engaging more strategically with potential long-term partners,” said Ripplinger. 

Creating Impactful Results at the Local Level

When asked about what he took from his Impact Collaborative experience that has been most impactful for this team, Ripplinger stated that “the Impact Collaborative was core to supporting both NSS and NEES, and allowed us to put the strategic ideas we were able to form into practice through writing grants, developing new partnerships, and ensuring our own sustainability going forward. The experts that eXtension has assembled to be at these events to inform our planning are phenomenal, and the Impact Collaborative is a top-flight program. Throughout the event, you get tidbits of information from many different individuals that say ‘try this’ or ‘have you thought about this?’ Many of those tidbits can be extremely impactful. I think that any program, particularly those in their early stage, need to get engaged with the Impact Collaborative and take advantage of the creative planning and strategic support they provide…Now that I’ve had a chance to revisit eXtension through the Impact Collaborative, I see how it is playing a critical role in the success of Extension nationally.”

Searcy’s take on her experience is that “the Impact Collaborative gives us a chance to explore our creative and artistic sides, and how to engage non-traditional partners. We can take what we learn here and extend it back to our communities. The Impact Collaborative is helping to sustain the sustainers.”

As a result of their work at the April 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit and their participation in the Impact Collaborative LaunchFest, this team received the top-score award for multi-state/national teams. This award provides them with a pre-approved $5000 grant. 

The $5000 grant from eXtension will assist the team in writing grants to support funding for their next conference, ensure representatives from 1890 and 1994 institutions can attend the next Impact Collaborative Summit in October 2019, and developing marketing materials for the 2021 NSS + NEES event. The National Sustainability Summit team is currently planning their next NSS + NEES event for 2021. 

About the eXtension Foundation

The eXtension Foundation is a membership-based non-profit designed to be the engine fueling U.S. Cooperative Extension’s advancement in making a more visible and measurable impact in support of education outreach from land-grant universities/colleges located in every state and territory. eXtension provides an array of opportunities for Extension professionals that foster innovation creation, the adoption of innovations at member institutions, and increased impact of Extension programs.

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Impact Collaborative Program Team, Wellness in Tough Times, responds to mental health needs for Farmers & Ranchers across Nebraska

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“Addressing mental health needs, particularly for rural Nebraskans, is one of our strategic priorities. We formed this team as part of a larger initiative to address this need. We also have a focus at UNL on increasing innovation and the opportunity to work with eXtension and the Impact Collaborative helps reinforce that focus. A number of Extension professionals from our institution have been involved with the Impact Collaborative, helping catalyze innovation across our system. The most recent Impact Collaborative Summit was a great opportunity for this new team to dive deep into their program planning, evaluate their partnership development strategy alongside the resources eXtension brought to the table, and return to UNL with a program ready to move forward to make a positive impact in our local communities.” – Chuck Hibberd, Dean and Director for Cooperative Extension at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 

Natural disasters in the Spring of 2019 such as flooding, coupled with economic conditions over the last several years, has severely impacted the lives of farmers and ranchers in Nebraska. 83 out of 93 counties were declared as disaster areas and over 500,000 acres and 3400 homes were damaged or condemned. While the attention about recovery efforts often focuses on saving farms, crop, and product, there is an urgent need to address the mental stress that farmers and ranchers face during critical times.

Wellness in Tough Times, a team of Extension professionals from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, is working towards implementing a program to address this critical need. Their project aims to help rural families create and maintain connections for mental wellness, help local communities through supporting farming and ranching families to address mental wellness, and identify meaningful and impactful ways to create communities of care to support mental wellness. 

The team’s individual backgrounds are diverse and includes Susan Harris-Broomfield, Extension Educator – Rural Health, Wellness, and Safety; Soni Cochran, Extension Associate; Robert Tigner, Agricultural Systems Economist; Brandy VanDeWalle, Extension Educator; and Michelle Krehbiel, Youth Development Specialist/Associate Professor. 

The team formed in early 2019 at the request of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Extension leadership. Rural mental health is one of the institution’s strategic priorities. 

Reinforcing Program Planning at the Impact Collaborative Summit

The team took advantage of the opportunity to attend eXtension’s Impact Collaborative Summit as a way of bringing together their ideas and creating a pathway forward for this critical program. The Impact Collaborative is a program that was created by eXtension to help Extension professionals find more innovative ways to generate a visible, measurable, local impact. It achieves this through offering professional development opportunities to Extension professionals both virtually and face-to-face, connecting Extension professionals with non-traditional partners for strategic support and new capacity, and equipping Extension professionals with new skills, tools, and resources to help increase innovation in their daily work. 

“Even before the disastrous blizzard and flooding issues in our state, we knew there was a need to help rural families create and maintain connections for mental wellness, reduce stigma related to mental wellness, and help communities in supporting farming/ranching families to address mental wellness.  Now, that issue is compounded by income and home losses around the state. We have and will have some depressed and distressed folks who need to know about available resources and coping skills,” says Harris-Broomfield, team leader for the Wellness in Tough Times team. 

At the Impact Collaborative Summit, the team had the opportunity to work closely on their project with access to key resources assembled by eXtension. The team was provided a coach from the Impact Collaborative’s network of Innovation Facilitators, an opportunity to access a graphic artist and a concept-mapping coach to help visualize, connect, and identify gaps in their project planning, and several Key Informants on staff with subject-matter-expertise in specialized areas.

“I love how it brought us together and made us think about this for three days. We had no distractions, only input and help from our coaches and from other teams,” said Harris-Broomfield.  

When asked about what specific activities from the Impact Collaborative Summit that were most helpful, Harris-Broomfield stated, “the visualization stations were very helpful; there were those of us on the teams who were able to see something different when we went through this process. It was great that the Impact Collaborative had that ability to cater to each of our minds,” said Harris-Broomfield.

During the Impact Collaborative Summit, the teams spent an evening sharing their programs and projects with other teams during a poster session. The purpose of this was for teams to gain more insights from the expertise in the room, and strengthen their project and program planning. 

“The poster session was really valuable, and was an opportunity to get input from other professionals that helped me formulate some different plans I could bring back to my team. We would also bring individuals over from other teams to talk to us about their experience, which helped improve our planning,” says Harris-Broomfield.  

The culminating event of the Impact Collaborative Summit was an opportunity for teams to present their projects and programs to a panel of Extension leaders and external partners at a “LaunchFest.” Teams participating in the LaunchFest not only gain valuable feedback from the panel and their peers across Extension, but teams that are most-ready to implement their projects and programs have the chance to secure an opportunity for funding. As a result of their presentation at the LaunchFest, the Wellness in Tough Times team received a pre-approved application for a $5000 grant funded by eXtension to move their project towards implementation. 

Taking The Program to the Next Level

The team is now moving forward to get their project off the ground. The team meets virtually once per month to discuss priorities and actions as necessary and reports monthly to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Rural Family Stress and Wellness work group, consisting of about 22 members including Extension employees and other partners across Nebraska. 

They are first performing an internal needs assessment with colleagues, then assessing the needs in each community, using a variety of techniques to ensure maximum reach. This includes focus groups to find appropriate partners in each community, visits at well-attended rural events, and finding local champions to start the conversation of mental health.  Following that will be educating Extension staff and activating a powerful wellness campaign. Their partners will include all University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Educators and staff, various members of the established work group hosted by Nebraska Extension, and members from mental health positions around the state. Also partnering is the University of Nebraska Medical Center, UNMC, Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska, local media, Women In Agriculture organizers, Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health, and AgrAbility. The team plans to pursue other potential partnership opportunities. 

The $5000 grant from eXtension will help fund travel for face-to-face meetings and focus groups, hire a data gathering system, and fund an interactive/educational booth activity to be used at farm-related events throughout the state such as Husker Harvest Days and the Nebraska State Fair in August and September.

Reflecting upon her experience with the Impact Collaborative, Harris-Broomfield shared that “it was inspiring and helpful. It’s something that I don’t think we would have ever accomplished on our own as just five people sitting in a room; we would have had a different outcome. I feel that the Impact Collaborative has the right experience in this, and it’s obvious that they’ve led teams through this before.”

About the eXtension Foundation

The eXtension Foundation is a membership-based non-profit designed to be the engine fueling U.S. Cooperative Extension’s advancement in making a more visible and measurable impact in support of education outreach from land-grant universities/colleges located in every state and territory. eXtension provides an array of opportunities for Extension professionals that foster innovation creation, the adoption of innovations at member institutions, and increased impact of Extension programs.

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Evaluation Report from April 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit Now Available

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For Immediate Release
June 12th, 2019
Contact: Aaron Weibe, aaronweibe@eXtension.org

26 Project and Program teams across Cooperative Extension representing 36 institutions attended the April 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit in Atlanta for a unique opportunity to create impactful results at the local level by increasing Cooperative Extension’s organizational readiness and capacity for innovation and change. Teams were connected with skills, tools, resources, and partners that helped expand and deepen their impact. The Summit evaluation report is available at eXtension.org/reports, including the full report and a glance sheet version.

Partners representing organizations external to Cooperative Extension were invited to attend the Impact Collaborative Summit and participated in our first national Partner Forum, with a guided discussion by leaders from the Institute for the Future. This forum was designed to connect private and public sector organizations focused on community impact, including leaders from Cooperative Extension, and look for future opportunities to engage collectively. After the forum, partners had the opportunity to spend time talking with teams and learning more about the work they are doing to make an impact in their states, locales, and across the nation.

After three days of hard work, teams participated in a LaunchFest where they presented their project or program to a panel of partners and Cooperative Extension leaders. As a result of their work, teams deemed most ready to launch within their region have a pre-approved application for a $5000 grant that brings new capacity to their project. All teams have an opportunity to apply for a $5000 grant to bring new capacity to their project and attend the October 2019 Impact Collaborative Summit.

eXtension will continue its support of all project and program teams through Engage & Empower Online, our new resource that offers Impact Collaborative teams and Innovation Facilitators unique professional development opportunities including webinars and learning circles, exclusive access to publications and presentations, access to a new online version of the Impact Collaborative Innovation Skill-Building Experience tool, and a place where the Impact Collaborative can continue to connect teams with the resources they may need to continue project or program growth towards increasing innovation and local impact.

The next Impact Collaborative Summit will be from October 15th – 17th, 2019 in Atlanta, GA. Registration will be available soon at eXtension.org/summit.

All reports from Impact Collaborative events, including this Summit report, are available at eXtension.org/reports. 

About the eXtension Foundation

The eXtension Foundation is a membership-based non-profit designed to be the engine fueling U.S. Cooperative Extension’s advancement in making a more visible and measurable impact in support of education outreach from land-grant universities/colleges located in every state and territory. eXtension provides an array of opportunities for Extension professionals that foster innovation creation, the adoption of innovations at member institutions, and increased impact of Extension programs.

 

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Jody Norman & Cynthia Pierfax named as eXtension’s 2019 NUEL Fellows

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For Immediate Release
June 6th, 2019
Contact: Aaron Weibe, aaronweibe@eXtension.org

The eXtension Foundation has named Jody Norman, Colorado State University, and Cynthia Pierfax, Prairie View A&M University, as the 2019 National Urban Extension Leaders (NUEL) Fellows. Their Fellowships will create a pathway for new work in high-priority topic areas for Cooperative Extension to be developed and disseminated in collaboration with NUEL and eXtension.

The NUEL Fellows will develop and edit key resources with technical assistance from eXtension and an editorial committee established by the Fellows in consultation with NUEL’s Executive Committee, Professional Development Action Team, and Communications Actions Team. Their work will result in the publication of a co-branded NUEL & eXtension eFieldbook using some of the NUEL Professional Development Competency and Best Practices Frameworks as the organizing frameworks for the publication. Additionally, an Asset Map will be created in conjunction with the eXtension Impact Collaborative partnership team to identify partner organizations with resources and capacity to offer Extension professionals in urban settings.

Cynthia Pierfax serves currently as a 4-H and Youth Development Specialist II, for Prairie View A&M University Cooperative Extension. She agents in 7 urban counties and 5 rural counties in the areas of STEM, leadership, community partnership, and volunteerism.  She has spent 5 years as a 4-H Agent in Dallas County with Prairie View and 2 years as a county 4-H Agent in East Carroll Parish, LA, under LSU AgCenter. Cynthia is a 2006 graduate of Tuskegee University, Animal Science, 2008 graduate of TN State University, M.S. Animal Science, and is currently set to graduate in December 2019 from Texas A&M with her doctorate in Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications.

Jody Norman is a sustainability writer and consultant with a passion toward the realization of cities as systemic regenerative frameworks that create, support, and advance the well-being of individuals, communities, and the Earth.  She possess several Masters’ Degrees, the most recent being a city and regional degree with an emphasis on environmental policy. She has written articles, taught college courses, and worked as a consultant and researcher. Her work in Extension has been diverse – she has served as a community partner to Denver Extension in a project with the Kettering Foundation, has completed an applied research fellowship with the Western Center, and is currently a project specialist for Denver Extension under the aegis of Director Rusty Collins.

About the National Urban Extension Leadership (NUEL)

The National Urban Extension Leadership (NUEL) established in 2013 to advance the strategic importance and long term value of urban Extension activities and to foster collaboration at the local, regional, and national levels to create greater capacity within the Cooperative Extension System. In 2015, urban Extension was added to the list of Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) priority initiatives. The NUEL Steering Committee consists of three volunteer representatives from each ECOP region.

About the eXtension Foundation

The eXtension Foundation is a membership-based non-profit designed to be the engine fueling U.S. Cooperative Extension’s advancement in making a more visible and measurable impact in support of education outreach from land-grant universities/colleges located in every state and territory. eXtension provides an array of opportunities for Extension professionals that foster innovation creation, the adoption of innovations at member institutions, and increased impact of Extension programs.

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Teresa McCoy named eXtension’s 2019 NAEPSDP Fellow

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For Immediate Release
May 30th, 2019
Contact: Aaron Weibe, aaronweibe@eXtension.org

The eXtension Foundation has named Teresa McCoy, University of Maryland Extension (UME), as the 2019 National Association of Extension Program & Staff Development Professionals (NAEPSDP) Fellow. She will create a pathway for new work in high-priority topic areas for Cooperative Extension to be developed, disseminated and used across the Cooperative Extension System. 

The focus of this fellowship is to develop the first version of an Evaluation eFieldbook. The new eXtension eFieldbook format is a digital platform for aggregating content, tools and engagement available to all professionals in Cooperative Extension, and used in eXtension’s Impact Collaborative. eFieldbooks are an interactive resource for Extension professionals and project/program teams to begin discussion, help establish processes, and assist with the delivery of new programs.

Teresa was hired as the Assistant Director, UME, Evaluation & Assessment, in August 2008. She came to UME with a long-term commitment to higher education outreach and Cooperative Extension. Teresa is a member of the UME leadership team with responsibilities in program development and evaluation, situational analysis, strategic planning, and organization development.  Teresa works with Maryland Extension educators to teach them evaluation practices on applied research projects that demonstrate the outcomes and impacts of UME.

Teresa’s specific expertise in evaluation include survey design and development, writing survey questions, logic models and goal clarity, interviewing, and facilitating group discussion about the purpose and goals of a program evaluation. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods in her work and is well-versed in Institutional Board Requirements (IRB). Teresa is often called upon to develop and write evaluation plans for grant projects and then to oversee the evaluation implementation. She finds her work extremely satisfying!

Teresa earned her B.A. and  Master’s in Public Administration(MPA) from Virginia Tech. She completed her Doctorate in Public Administration (DPA) at the University of Baltimore.

 

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