Community organizing for economic development : a program evaluation of the Maine Downtown Center

This project is a program evaluation of the Maine Downtown Center. The Maine Downtown Center (MDC), a program of the Maine Development Foundation, a 501 (c)(3), offers services on two levels. MDC serves as a resource to all downtowns in the state of Maine that have the desire to revitalize their downtowns and it provides assistance to designated Main Street Maine communities. Main Street Maine communities are selected by MDC through a competitive process based on specific criteria. The Maine Downtown Center (MDC) was fairly new at the time of this project and had not been previously assessed. The executive director of MDC expressed perceived tensions between key stakeholders. The intent of the MDC program evaluation was to discover perceptions of key stakeholders of MDC: Advisory Board Members and Main Street Maine Downtown Managers, interpreted as indicators of program effectiveness. Because non-profits have transitioned in the last few decades through adoption of more business-like practices, there has been an increased interest in determining criteria for non-profit effectiveness. Two of the most emergent theories in determining stakeholder perceptions of non-profit organizational effectiveness are the multiple constituency and social constructionist models. There were four prevalent themes that arose out of the qualitative interviews of the board members and downtown mangers. Tensions of key stakeholders were based on perceptions that the executive director was not responsive to their needs, consistent in services provided, did not create formal or informal mechanisms for open dialogue, and did not perform needs assessments. Using the perspectives of the multiple constituency and social constructionist models, recommendations were made based on shaping stakeholder perceptions through management strategies that include responsiveness, consistency, open dialogue, and needs assessments. Because the literature on determining non-profit organizational effectiveness is limited in general, and considering stakeholder perceptions as criteria for effectiveness even more limited, there is a need for longitudinal studies of organizations that use management strategies to shape stakeholder perceptions to determine if these strategies influence perceptions and/or actual organizational effectiveness.