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FWEA Focus—Sondra W. Lee
Sondra W. Lee, P.E.
President, FWEA
The FWEA has a strategic business plan in place to ensure that the organization’s mission continues to be met by staying on top of emerging issues and allowing the organization to continue bringing value to water professionals. The most recent plan was developed in 2020 and adopted in early 2021. After adoption, the FWEA board of directors (BOD) wanted to make sure that it remained an active guidance document for our chapters and committees.
Since there was a lot packed into the strategic business plan, key objectives were identified that would be closely monitored throughout the year to help move them toward completion.
Parts of a Strategic Goal
Strategic Business Plan and Goals
The strategic business plan has four main strategic goals that support the mission of FWEA, which is as follows:
“The Florida Water Environment Association is dedicated to promoting a clean and sustainable water environment by supporting and uniting our members with the public through public awareness and outreach, providing professional development and networking opportunities for our members, and creating alliances to promote sound sciencebased public policy.”
Each strategic goal contains its own list of goals, with supportive objectives. Then, each objective has action plans that describe how the objective would be met. Team leaders assigned to each strategic goal will monitor the progress of the overall goals, objectives, and action plans.
The four strategic goal areas are:
Member Engagement
The FWEA strives to provide value and demonstrate the value of joining the organization in order to accomplish our mission. Providing member services, such as high-quality training, education, and networking opportunities, draws water professionals in Florida to our association.
Public Awareness/Outreach
The FWEA chooses to be a resource for the general public in promotion of water quality issues and solutions by promoting and providing educational resources to its members for educating the public at all levels.
Partnerships and Sound Science-Based Public Policy
The FWEA acknowledges the benefit of creating alliances to inform water professionals and advise policy makers on scientific, environmental, operational, and financial aspects of water-related issues.
Workforce/Professional Development
The FWEA seeks an active and healthy opportunity to expand value to its members and to continue to provide professional development at the highest level for relevant and innovative education and training, and help the industry in identifying and developing a skilled workforce.
From these four strategic goals, 11 goals, 24 objectives, and 65 action plans were developed. While it’s quite possible for several action items to be taking place simultaneously, implementing and tracking 65 separate action plans all at once appeared to be a method destined for failure or burnout of volunteers.
Key Objectives
To narrow down and prioritize parts of the strategic business plan, the strategic goal leaders were asked to select two “key objectives” to focus on. Then, at the leadership development workshop held in February, FWEA chapter and committee leads reviewed the action plans of the key objectives. Breakout groups modified action plans to make sure that they were clearly actionable, naming resources and action plan leads, defining how to measure the actions, and providing estimated due dates.
Over the next year or two, FWEA volunteers will focus on the eight key objectives of the strategic business plan, providing updates to the BOD. Meanwhile, volunteers will work on other action plans as much as possible.
Here are key objectives selected by the strategic goal leads:
Strategy Goal Number 1: Member Engagement
S Objective 1.1b: Enhance FWEA social media presence and social media post quality in order to attract new members. S Objective 1.2b: Enhance networking opportunities.
Strategic Goal Number 2: Public Awareness and Outreach
S Objective 2.1c: Continue to participate and support the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, and regional and state science fairs. S Objective 2.2b: Provide outreach tools for use by members, public, or media by utilizing
FWEA-created materials or collaborating with municipalities, nonprofits, and other associations or organizations.
Strategic Goal Number3: Partnerships and Sound Science-Based Public Policy
S Objective 3.1a: Participate in and help to plan events with other like-minded organizations, while maintaining the FWEA brand for specific events/efforts and associated joint events. S Objective 3.2a: Directors at large to give the
FWEA Utility Council report from the BOD meeting back to chapter and committee leaders after each BOD meeting starting April 2021.
Strategic Goal Number 4: Workforce Professional Development
S Objective 4.1a: Conduct an exit survey at the end of each seminar to evaluate content on a scale from 1 to 5, achieving a score of 80 percent or better. S Objective 4.3a: Produce a detailed step-bystep standard operating procedure, generic for any event, with a timeline of milestones for organizing the event.
Members of FWEA can review the full strategic business plan on its website at www. fwea.org from the “Volunteer Resources” page. S
