I. Working in Partnership with the Forest Service
The Focus of this Guide
Much of this guide focuses on guidance for documenting partnerships through formal arrangements and navigating the laws and policies that apply to partnerships. It will also help users learn to build and maintain strong relationships, understand the Forest Service and nonprofit organizations, initiate work with volunteers, understand conduct and ethics requirements for agency employees, and discover new ways to communicate about a partnership's successes.
The guide is an overview, so it is important for the user to consult the sources of in-depth information referenced throughout the guide and/or work with Forest Service staff assigned to oversee grants, agreements, and partnerships. (See Appendix C – Contacts and Partner Websites – for Forest Service and National Forest Foundation contact information and links to additional partner websites.)
Revitalizing Communities
Funding derived from the Forest Service's Economic Action Programs and other partners helped Colville Confederated Tribes located in Washington State purchase and improve a plywood mill and biomass power plant that had recently shut down in the community of Omak. Colville Confederated Tribes and its business arm developed the site into a viable low cost producer of plywood and biomass power using tribal resources and employed 71 people in family-wage jobs, helping the region to prosper. Partners that supported the effort included several federal and state agencies, Washington State University, a U.S. Senator's Office, the county's economic development council, and a national bank.
