The Intertwine Alliance: Creating the Greatest System of Parks, Trails, and Natural Areas

Organization Name:
Barlow Trail Association
City & State:
Describe your creative piece – what is it and what has it been used for, and why is it innovative?
The Intertwine Alliance’s web site is the central communication focal point addressing the issue of region wide partnership and collaboration to achieve “The Intertwine”. It seeks to attract and enlist active citizens, NGOs, businesses, land owners, and jurisdictions. It starts with the rationale/reason for viewing the region differently, dynamically illustrates the “experiences” that local “celebrities” have enjoyed with nature, and dynamically presents some of the area resources and involved organizations. It is the generous donation by Adobe that has allowed the full technical collaboration between the NGOs and the jurisdictions needed to accomplish our visionary goal. The involvement and support of the talents and flexibility of the smaller organizations has been a key element in responding to opportunities/needs and in creating a more dynamic web site.
What issue or problem were you working to address with this piece?
The Intertwine Alliance is collaborating to: Create the greatest system of parks, trails, and natural areas: The Intertwine! for the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington region. The efforts to further enhance parks, trails, and natural areas have been fragmented. While there is strong citizen support, evidenced by consistent support for bond measures, the work has gone slowly. The Intertwine Alliance of NGOs, citizen groups, jurisdictions, businesses, and active citizens, was created to pull together the actions and goals of the various organizations. The Alliance works to enable partnership and collaboration on Acquisition, Restoration, Active Transportation, Conservation Education, and a Region System perspective. The web site needs to: establish credibility and visibility, and support enlisting and collaborate for partnership. Tactically, it needs to inform and attract, engage and enlist, and empower to work locally and region wide.
How has your submission successfully impacted your organization’s ability to solve this issue/problem?
Since being launched last September, as enabled by the Adobe donation, the site has accomplished major steps to help the Alliance. - It has established credibility and visibility with the press, jurisdictions, and citizens as evidenced by the Bi-State Regional Trails System Plan collaboration/partnership. - Our email list of “interested parties” has continually expanded through web contacts. - The site has helped enlistment for activities such as Parking Day. Having established presence and creditability, the Alliance is utilizing the site to further engage citizens and organizations. With the enthusiasm and involvement generated so far, future additions will add “find a trail”, social networking, and volunteer/support opportunities will move the Alliance forward towards the goal of: The Greatest System of parks, trails, and natural areas: The Intertwine
Creative Submission - URL
http://www.TheIntertwine.org