After over a decade of advocacy and building creative collaborations, Truckee Meadows Tomorrow's perseverance paid off in a strategic breakthrough with the Washoe County government. In 2005, the elected Washoe County Board of Commissioners decided to focus their strategic plan more on longer term quality of life outcomes.

The Greater Kansas City LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) has started a new program to expand Governing for Results beyond housing and economic development to include additional quality of life issues determined by neighborhood residents. The new program, "NeighborhoodsNOW," is designed to build collaborations of multiple community service organizations that agree to work as partners to improve specific neighborhoods.

The Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center in Novosibirsk, Russia, in partnership with Epstein & Fass Associates, launched the new program, "Communities Of, By, and For the People" in the spring of 2006. Over the course of the next two years, six pilot communities from across Siberia will receive both external training and on-site support to improve their governance practices, community measurement strategy, and citizen engagement.

A study tour in the Donbass region of Ukraine followed by a seminar in Kyiv, commissioned by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, have provided a perspective on how the Effective Community Governance model could be applied by leading Ukrainian NGOs.

The Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center (SCISC) is the largest independent foundation dedicated to supporting grassroots democratic development in the vast region. SCISC has a network of affiliate organizations in 14 oblasts that brings expertise in strengthening communities and NGO leadership development to all parts of Siberia. SCISC is a leader in community development, and has provided training to NGO leaders, educators, and public officials across Russia and in other former Soviet countries. We are pleased to welcome them as a partner on the Results That Matter team.