January 2015 - Parks & Recreation - 50

NRPA Update
member agencies that are interested
in learning more about the benefits
GIS can bring to their operations or
how they can use GIS tools to improve their efficiency and operations.
NRPA Target Ranges
From 1971 to 1995, NRPA published
the " National Park, Recreation and
Open Space Standards " as a minimum set of benchmarks to guide
agencies. Despite disclaimers that
these guidelines were to be used only
as a basis for a more thorough and
specific analysis, these standards were
often cited verbatim in master plans
and level-of-service recommendations. Over time, NRPA came to realize that prescribing " one-size-fits-all "
standards for communities as diverse
as those served by our members was
not serving our agencies or their citizens well. Even though we haven't
updated these standards in almost
20 years, we still receive calls and
requests for copies of these guidelines on a weekly basis.
As a membership association devoted to serving our
members, how do we provide
guidance related to level of service
when there's such variability in the
members we serve? We think PRORAGIS provides the answer.
Rather than using broad rules of
thumb for guiding
important agency
decisions, isn't it
better to compare
yourself to others in the industry
rather than relying on dated research
that may not apply to your community? While PRORAGIS has always
allowed participating agencies to
identify and compare themselves
with other similar agencies, we've
now made it possible to compare
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your agency to the field as a whole.
We've identified the most important metrics, compiled all the data
we've received since the inception
of PRORAGIS, and produced operating ranges that give PRORAGIS
users a quick, easy-to-understand
snapshot of how their agency lines
up against other agencies across the
country. You'll easily be able to see
where you stack up against other

agencies, where you're doing a great
job and where you have room to
improve. Importantly, these ranges
don't come from us or from academic
research - they come from you, the
park and recreation professional.
If your agency has participated in
the past, you'll be seeing a custom
agency report that provides your
comparison to other PRORAGIS
agencies in your mailbox soon. For

You'll easily be able to see where you stack up
against other agencies, where you're doing a
great job and where you have room to improve.

| J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 5 | W W W. N R PA . O R G

those of you who haven't participated, once you complete your agency's PRORAGIS survey, you'll also
have the ability to quickly compare
yourself to all the agencies we've
collected data from, or zero in
and do more focused comparisons of your operations with
other specific agencies. All of
these features will be accessible
from your dashboard after you log
in to PRORAGIS at www.nrpa.org/
PRORAGIS.
NRPA thanks the
agencies
that
have participated in PRORAGIS, and all those
who have provided us
with feedback and criticism.
These ideas and the direction
for our improvements have come
from you, and we'll continue to listen,
modify and do our best to provide you
with the tools you need to make data-driven decisions in your agency.
Travis Smith, Ph.D., is NRPA's Vice President
of Research (tsmith@nrpa.org).

January 2015 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2015 - Parks & Recreation