3.0 – Organization and Administration

The organizational structure provides alignment of responsibility and delegation of authority to enable the agency to carry out its mission.  The roles, responsibilities and structure should be clearly understood by staff and the public.

Administrative reporting systems provide management information on the activities of the agency. Properly designed administrative reports will reflect comparative data and trends on activities.  An effective administrative reporting system ensures communications throughout the chain of command.

Public information, community relations, and marketing are complementary functions within the agency.  The functions overlap because they all deal with an organization’s relationships and employ similar communication tools.  While they have the same ultimate purpose of helping assure an organization’s success, the purpose of each differs and each approaches the task from a different perspective. 

To operate effectively, a park and recreation agency must have the support of its community.  An agency can obtain such support by informing the public and news media of events that affect the lives of citizens in the community.  By providing the news media and the community with information on agency administration and operations, a relationship of mutual trust, cooperation, and respect can be maintained. 

An agency should make use of the many community organizations that exist in its jurisdiction and establish relationships with them.  The park and recreation agency should play an active role in organizing community groups where they do not exist.  By establishing such links with the community, the park and recreation agency learns of issues, needs, and opportunities and responds to them before they become problems.  A well-organized community relations effort can act as an effective means of eliciting public support and can serve to identify problems in the making.

Effective market research, planning, product and program development, strategies, and objectives for delivering demand-driven, high quality programs and services contribute to successful park and recreation operations.  Marketing is a process for accomplishing agency mission and objectives by developing, pricing, making accessible, and providing accurate and timely information about recreational opportunities that satisfy the wants/desires of target markets. 

All park and recreation agencies perform certain marketing functions; the scope of their work however, depends on their size and mandate.  Among the functions are user inquiry, development of an agency marketing philosophy and marketing plan, and development of operational procedures and policy guidelines to implement that philosophy. The complexities of marketing and related research functions require that all agency staff be appropriately educated about marketing and its application across functions.