It’s time to build a better Owensboro
People feel enormous pride from living in Greater Owensboro. And for good reason: it’s family-oriented, faith-based, and
built on deep relationships.
At the same time, there’s a sense of restlessness about the community’s future. Many wonder if Greater Owensboro can
overcome growing divides to work together and tackle pressing issues that keep our community from its full potential.
Today, the community faces a fundamental choice.
Keep with the status quo and risk stagnation or seize the opportunity to come together and build a better Owensboro?
Back in 2023, Greater Owensboro Leadership Institute partnered with The Harwood Institute for an initiative to catalyze
community-led change. The work, underwritten by the Hager Educational Foundation, is grounded in a belief that by
working together in new ways, the people of Greater Owensboro can build a more inclusive, hopeful path forward.
Since then, The Harwood Institute’s team have immersed themselves in Owensboro-Daviess County, holding 17 resident
conversations, 13 leader roundtables, and 36 in-depth interviews with a cross-section of community leaders. All told, they
engaged hundreds people from all parts of the community and all walks of life around shared aspirations and collective
concerns.
Later this week, Rich Harwood, president and founder of The Harwood Institute, will be back in Owensboro for a series
of in-person events to release a report informed by what we heard from the community.
The report, Building a Better Owensboro: a New Path Forward for Owensboro-Daviess County, doesn’t prescribe
specific solutions to Owensboro’s challenges; instead, it seeks to illuminate a path forward that enables people across
the community to bridge divides, generate shared purpose, and discover ways to move forward together.
While the report shows there are a variety of different perspectives among community members, when we look closely it
becomes clear that what people want for the future is more alike than different.
In fact, the report illuminates four overarching themes.
Focus on pressing issues. A collection of issues — including homelessness, drugs and addiction, violence, disparities
between the haves and have nots, youth, and job opportunities — were raised in every conversation. While action is
being taken in some of these areas, new ways of working together are required to address these fundamental issues.
Move from getting together to working together. People in Greater Owensboro get together frequently.
But both residents and leaders say there must be new ways of actually working together in order to overcome
fragmentation, break down silos, engage in difficult conversations, and take shared action.
Grow civic capacities. In talking to both residents and leaders, it’s clear Greater Owensboro must grow its civic
capacities. These include the need to develop more leaders who are Turned Outward toward the community; more
authentic conversations that enable the community to work through hard issues; and more groups that catalyze shared
action, stronger norms of working together, and renewed shared purpose.
Be inclusive. Throughout Greater Owensboro, many people feel unseen and unheard. Some people — including young
people, people of color, women in leadership, rural residents, people without families, and the LGBTQ+ community —
often do not feel truly included and welcomed.
Is there a place for everyone in Greater Owensboro?
In one of the resident conversations that informed the report, a resident said, “We all know that this community can be
better and do better for everybody in it.” For this to be the case, enough people must intentionally step forward, “Turn
Outward” toward one another, and set in motion meaningful actions that spread throughout the community like a chain
reaction.
The good news is Owensboro has what it takes to forge stronger relationships, networks, and norms for working together
— a stronger civic foundation — upon which positive actions can take root, grow, and spread over time. As another
resident said during a conversation, “I feel like there’s hope for Owensboro to get better.” This work is important locally.
It’s also important nationally. Our country needs more examples of communities coming together to forge a common
future, especially amid people’s real differences. Owensboro can be this guiding light.
While it may not be easy, building a better Greater Owensboro is practical, doable, and achievable. It’s time to make
progress on the issues that really matter to people to make our future even better than our past. Let’s go together.
Join Harwood for a keynote event at Brescia University’s Duffy Auditorium on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. This event is free
and open to the public but RSVPs are encouraged by visiting tinyurl.com/OWSREPORT.
Richard C. Harwood is the president and founder of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization located in Bethesda, MD
Stacy Edds-Ellis, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Greater Owensboro Leadership Institute, a nonpartisan, 501©(3)
organization located in Owensboro
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