Twelve to 14 people planned the 2026 camp, meeting weekly from January to June. Taylor called them the generators. Most were mid-career staff from state agencies, plus a project manager from the architecture firm that runs Team Oregon Build and the education sponsor’s coordinators. None of them worked on the camp full time.
Their method was simple and worth copying.
Put the whole week on a whiteboard. Villages, teams, activities, the shape of each day.
Test every idea. Rawson described the filter: “How realistic? Who do we know? Where do we get it from? Do we chase it down or would we drop it?”
Assign lanes. Each person owned a function and reported weekly on the gaps that remained.
Set a go/no-go date. In 2026 it was the first Friday of April, eleven weeks before camp. On that date the group decided it had enough partners, agencies and money to proceed.
In year one the lanes fell roughly this way: the program lead handled partners, funders and Builder City; the project manager handled logistics, materials, budget, marketing and documentation; the education sponsor handled registration, hiring and family communication; the Department of Forestry handled activities, volunteers and the emergency plan; Human Services handled Tent City and the units; Emergency Management handled the preparedness curriculum.
What leadership would change. Bring your ICS section chiefs into the core team from the start. In 2026 the planning team did most of the pre-work itself and then carried most of the decisions during camp. The volunteers who held command roles knew their jobs, but arrived without the information to make decisions, so questions flowed back to the same three leaders. Leadership also recommended splitting volunteer coordination and activity coordination between at least two people.