Communitybased Strategic Planning for Economic and Community Development

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Community-based Strategic Planningfor Economic
and Community Development

• December 14, 2005
• Lorraine Hingston Roach, President
• The Hingston Roach Group, Inc.

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AGENDA

• Why Community-Based Planning?
• Other planning methods
• Economic vs. Community Development
• National International Trends in E.D.
• Community-Based Planning Process
• Resources for Economic Community Development
• Economic Community Development Players in Idaho
• Potential Roles for Extension

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Why Community-BasedStrategic Planning?

• Community-Based
• vs.
• Traditional Planning

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Community-Based Planning

• A planning process that emphasizes outreach to
  engage all stakeholders
• Focuses on awareness-building, community values
• Elected officials planners become staff
• Broad access means to participate
• Broad community participation in all phases of
  planning

An Informed Majority Will Make a Good Decision
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Traditional Planning Method(Comp Plans, NEPA,
Transportation, etc.)

• Identify Problem(s)
• Set Goals Policies
• Identify Evaluate Alternatives
• Select Best Alternative(s)
• Implement
• Method is top-down, often results in conflict,
  appeals, lawsuits, etc.

Citizens Usually Engaged Here
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Community-Based Planning

• Define Community Values
• Evaluate Existing Conditions Socio-economic
  trends, SWOT
• Define Vision, Goals, Objectives
• Clarify Target Markets
• Identify Alternatives/Actions
• Evaluate/Select Alternatives, Prioritize Actions
• Implement
• Monitor Adjust Planning Elements

Citizens Informed Engaged At Every Step
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Outreach Methods
Recruit Engage Inform Guide Decide Collaborate

• Interviews
• Open Houses
• Workshops, charettes
• Phone calls
• Personal Visits
• Personal Letters
• Newsletters
• Website
• Surveys, focus groups
• Civic meetings guest speaker/listener
• Recruitment of missing interest groups
• Media relations ongoing updates/articles
• Citizen planners steering committee,
  subcommittees

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Community vs. Economic Development

• What is the Difference?

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Community vs. Economic Development

• Community Development
• Focused on improving quality of life
• Focused on needs of residents
• Concerned with housing, social services,
  education, health care, recreation, etc.

• Economic Development
• Focused on improving standard of living
• Focused on needs of businesses
• Concerned with business climate, workforce,
  transportation, infra-structure, etc.

Are interdependent, but slightly different focus
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What Does E.D. Strategic Planning Try to
Accomplish?

• Understand trends affecting the community
• Identify top priority issues, challenges
  opportunities, in the context of community values
  and goals, in order to
• Identify actions to address the issues,
  opportunities challenges
• Focus E.D. efforts strategically
• Identify potential resources
• Work together to implement actions
• Link to regional state efforts

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Strategic Planning Benefits

• Takes a proactive rather than reactive approach
• More likely to result in solution of difficult
  problems
• Provides an efficient process for reallocating
  resources to meet changing conditions
• Creates a forum of dialogue between stakeholders
  and the organizations and agencies that serve
  them
• Serves as an education to stakeholders about the
  functioning of organizations what they do and
  why
• Provides an opportunity to focus on the forest
  rather than the trees to take time out from the
  urgent to do whats important

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Economic Growth

• Absolute changes in
• Jobs
• Population
• Labor force
• Traffic
• Student enrollments
• Building construction

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Growth vs. Development

• WEED PATCH
• Unplanned
• Change
• Activity
• Reactive

• GARDEN
• Planned
• Improvement
• Progress
• Proactive

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Growth vs. Development

• Change is inevitable, like death and taxes
• Communities and regions will change, whether they
  want to or not they will either grow or die
• Change for the better doesnt just happen it
  takes planning and concerted effort
• A community or region can either manage change,
  or be at the mercy of change

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Economic Development is Happening When

• The standard of living is increasing
• A real increase in the level of average
  household income is occurring
• The local tax base is meeting the escalating cost
  of government services
• Business and industry is investing more in the
  community than they are costing the community
• Commercial development usually subsidizes
  residential development which does not pay for
  itself

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Economic Development

• The process is facilitated through
• Development of a skilled workforce
• Investment in the physical infrastructure
• Creation of new jobs at higher wages
• Improvement of the business environment
• Availability of marketable land and buildings
• Maintenance of the environment
• Improvement of the quality of life
• Marketing promoting the community/region

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National International Trends in Econ Devt
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Major Trends Affecting Our Economic Situation

• Global economy
• Knowledge-based economy
• E-manufacturing
• Shift to services
• Small business dominance
• Focus on workforce education
• Quality of life
• Regionalism

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Whats NEW About the New Economy?

• Increasing percent of growing companies are
  globally integrated and pressing for open
  international trade
• Increasingly digital and information driven
• Transformation to e-businesses that use
  Internet-platforms for integrating their entire
  operation
• Innovation leading to highly customized
  information, services, products (e.g., flexible
  production and mass customization supply chain
  management)
• Highly networked entrepreneurs who both
  collaborate compete with one another
• Growth areas have high concentrations of
  knowledge workers an ability to attract
  retain these workers
• Highly mobile skilled labor force (job
  churning)

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The Global Economy

• A borderless economy with constant flow of
  currency, information, and technology
• Multi-national corporations with globally
  integrated facilities
• Quest for new or emerging markets in developing
  countries
• Growth companies focusing on exporting and
  product standardization depending on open trade

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Knowledge-Based Economy

• Less about production and more about innovation
• Based on advanced technology in computers
  telecommunications becoming a digital economy
• U.S. leads the world in IT (at least for now)
• Fastest growing segment is software industry
• Internet explosion globally
• Critical shortage of skilled IT workers, and
  schools not responding fast enough.
• Telecommunications infrastructure more important
  esp. to rural areas

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E-Manufacturing

• Integration of corporate activity using an
  Internet-based platform
• Access to corporate and market information
  throughout the organization
• Shift from mass production assembly
• Flexible manufacturing systems
• Mass customization
• Lean manufacturing
• Supply chain management
• Outsourcing

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E-Manufacturing

• Shorter product life cycles leading to faster
  location decisions
• Response by communities more time sensitive
• Increased concern for zoning permitting
• Need for existing trained workforce
• More emphasis on existing available buildings

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Services

• 94 or more of all new jobs over next 10 years
• Local expansion rather than attraction
• Rapid growth in productivity
• Job growth in computer, personnel, management
  consulting, professional services, health (China
  will graduate more P.E.s this year than U.S.)
• High growth jobs are high wage, narrowing the
  wage gap with manufacturing
• Grow in an environment of high quality of life
  attractive community

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Small Business Dominance

• Most new jobs from startup firms
• Only a small percentage of small firms grow
  rapidly
• Require business assistance and financing
• High risk
• More innovative succeed

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Retooling the Workforce

• Increased demand for technical professional
  skills
• Focus on areas with pools of skills and
  graduating students
• Need for continuing education
• Increased emphasis within companies on training
  retraining
• Greater concern with productivity than with wages
• Ability to recruit retain technicians
  professionals

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Looking for a Better Life

• Availability of quality housing at reasonable
  costs
• Strong basic skills in education
• Presence of colleges/universities
• Low crime rate
• Good traffic flow
• Lodging restaurants
• Good medical health care
• Attractive clean environment
• Variety of retail customer services
• Broad range of cultural recreational
  opportunities

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Regionalism

• Individual communities in a region cannot
  adequately solve the problems of urban sprawl,
  housing, transportation, water and sewer service,
  environmental issues, and enhanced quality of
  life
• Business and industry draw their labor from a
  region, not one community
• Collaboration within a region takes much more
  effort than within a more defined community
• In other words, rival community members have to
• stop sleeping in their lettermens jackets!

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Community-Based Planning Process

• Situation Assessment
• Vision, Goals, Objectives
• Targeting
• Actions to Achieve Goals
• Implementation
• Ways to Measure Results
• Resources

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Situation Assessment

• Socio-Economic Trends
• Population (size, age, race, income, education)
• Business trends ( of businesses by type, sales,
  retail leakage, tourism trends, workforce, wages,
  markets, challenges, etc.)
• SWOT
• Leadership, communication/conflict, existing
  organizations effectiveness
• Infrastructure, housing, transportation, utility
  costs, regulations, econ devt services, real
  estate
• QOL youth/elder services, crime rate,
  recreation, environment, etc.

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Situation Assessment

• Community Culture Values
• Economic history industries, linkages
• Cultural history, ethnic/religious groups, etc.
• Changes in community key events, cultural
  dynamics, population shifts, etc.
• Community dynamics leadership succession,
  shared decision-making (or not), vertical vs.
  horizontal relationships, formal vs. informal
  networks, etc.

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Assessment Methods

• Review previous planning efforts/documents
• Understand history, stories of key figures/events
• Socio-economic data, business inventory
• Local assessment work (Gem Cmty, infrastructure
  studies, etc.)
• 1-on-1 interviews (cross-section of community
  youth, srs, business, homemakers, natives,
  newcomers, private, public, nonprofit, education)
• Surveys (online), focus groups
• Public meetings to present summary of findings
  and observations (Reality Check)

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Vision

• There is no more powerful engine driving an
  organization toward excellence and long-range
  success than an attractive, worthwhile, and
  achievable vision of the future, widely shared.
  
• (Burt Nanus, Visionary Leadership)

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Vision

• What do we want our future to hold for us?
• What do we want to become,
• -- and NOT become?
• Vision is
• An ideal and unique view of the future
• Flows from the knowledge experience of the
  citizens and leaders
• Gives a sense of purpose to the actions of the
  community/region and its organizations

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An Effective Vision

• Widely shared
• Clearly articulated
• Strongly committed to
• Challenging but attainable
• Highly desirable a substantial improvement on
  the present
• Concise and memorable

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Evolution of a Shared Vision
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Value of the Vision

• Provides focus for the communitys activities
• Serves as a means of measuring progress
• Energizes the communitys organizations and
  fosters commitment to their programs
• Envisioning involves a belief that we can
  influence our economic destiny by what we do now.
• The vision statement establishes the general
  direction that the strategic planning process
  should take. It defines the future of the
  community or its downtown as envisioned by local
  leadership. It is the "grand design" for local
  development.

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Developing the Shared Vision

• Identify individual vision of citizens and
  leaders
• By 2010, what would you like to change or improve
  about the community?
• By 2010, what would you like NOT to change about
  the community?
• Identify and prioritize shared vision elements
• From priority elements, develop a Vision
  Statement
• One process is to use a structured workshop, in
  facilitated small groups, following a
  presentation of the assessment findings and
  trends (base)

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• Vision for Ritzville in 2020
• In the next 20 years, Ritzville will grow both
  in its strength as the commercial focus of
  Eastern Washingtons wheat country and in its
  population, approaching its ideal level of
  approximately 2,500 residents. These residents
  will be comprised of an older-than-average
  population featuring many retirees who have
  chosen to live in Ritzville for a variety of
  special reasons including its small-town
  atmosphere, easy accessibility to big-town
  Spokane and Ritzvilles wide range of health care
  and recreational services.
• Another element of the population, in response to
  advances in technology, will be the home-based
  business or technology entrepreneur. This segment
  will help enhance Ritzvilles economic resilience
  by providing a more diversified economy
  complementing the largely agriculture-driven
  incomes.
• Two commercial areas, featuring regional
  commercial centers and lodging, will have
  continued to develop at the two interchanges
  serving the town, complementing the more
  specialized commercial nature of the central
  business district.
• To accommodate this anticipated growth, Ritzville
  will have worked to improve and expand its water
  and sewer systems. Even in the face of growth,
  Ritzville will continue to offer the community
  stability, citizen involvement and unique
  character that have made it an attractive place
  to live and work.

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Break!
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The great thing in this world is not so much
where we are, but in what direction we are
moving.
Goals

• Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Goals

• Stated as an achieved future condition that
  contributes to realization of vision
• One method is to restate priority issues as goals
• Issues are viewed as problems to be solved,
  concerns or needs to be addressed, or
  opportunities to be pursued
• Problems
• Constraints
• Needs
• Concerns
• Attitudes
• Unrealized opportunities / potential

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Objectives

• Specific, quantifiable measures of achievement
  toward goals
• Increases in HH income, wages, of businesses,
  sales
• Higher school enrollment, test scores, graduation
  rates
• Increase in workforce training completed and
  placement
• Improvements to specific measures of
  infrastructure
• Improvements in water/air quality, maintenance of
  parks/streets/blighted areas, housing, health
  care
• Communication between community groups, changes
  in public policy, involvement in meetings/events,
  etc.

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Strategic Planning Targeting

• Targeting public investments in infrastructure or
  resources that will improve competitive position
  and quality of life
• Targeting marketing, business retention/
  expansion, and entrepreneurial efforts toward
  specific industries or clusters of industries
• Targeting the development organizations time,
  talent, and money on those activities most likely
  to achieve desired results
• Limited resources require FOCUS

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Targeted Marketing

• Local residents
• Businesses
• Industry sectors
• Tourists
• Regional residents
• New residents

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75 of businesses depend on wealth attracted from
outside the region by the 25 of companies with
national and global markets.Target businesses
that will bring new money!
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Strategic Actions to Achieve Goals

• Possible actions that can be taken to
• Remove or to resolve causes of problems
• Take advantage of opportunities
• Actions are specific, achievable, with
  implement-able steps

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Basis of Choice for Strategic Actions

• Local goals objectives
• Creating maximum positive impact on economy
• Amount type of resources available
• Level of commitment of leadership
• Ability to measure results

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Implementation Path Forward
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Implementation

• Identify implementation partners, roles
• Determine lead/assist for each action
• Establish priority level of each action
• Set timeline for implementation of each action
• Identify potential resources for implementation
  of each action
• Create written Strategic Action Plan

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Overview Strategic Action Plan

• Situation assessment
• Vision statement
• Goals
• Objectives Actions
• Organizational responsibility
• Funding needs and sources
• Timing
• Desired impact or results
• Implementation partners, schedule, roles
• Evaluation adjustment procedures
• Resources for implementation

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Partners
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Action Table
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Measuring Results

• Measure progress by tracking results
• First, establish benchmarks (existing conditions
  part of assessment)
• Determine methods and responsibility for
  monitoring results of specific actions
• Report annually on progress to stakeholders,
  media, funding partners, etc.

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Next Steps

• Suggested next steps in Action Plan
  implementation
• Approval and adoption of final Action Plan
  document by City Council, Chamber of Commerce,
  EDC, etc.
• Send copies of Action Plan to Idaho Commerce
  Labor, U.S. Economic Development Admin, USDA-RD,
  etc.
• Endorsement of Action Plan by County Commission.
• Endorsement and/or adoption of Action Plan by
  other community organizations.
• Obtain commitments from partners to implement and
  report quarterly on progress (e.g., Presidents
  Council)
• Begin implementation of the Economic Action Plan.
• Monitor/oversee implementation of Plan, meet to
  discuss/report progress twice a year.

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Resources for Implementation

• Federal (www.grants.gov)
• USDA grants for business devt projects (RBEG,
  RBOG), infrastructure financing, telecom,
  community projects (RCAG, RCA), NRCS
• EDA Economic Development grants for business
  assistance, development
• HUD Infrastructure funding (CDBG)
• BIA Cooperative projects with tribes
  business/economic development, telecom, etc.
• EPA Brownfields, environmental restoration
• USFWS Habitat restoration, recreation access
• NPS Challenge Cost Share
• FHwA Scenic Byway, Enhancement grants
• National Trust for Historic Preservation
  Preserve America, National Main Street Center
  (mainstreet.org)
• NEA, NEH Arts and humanities projects

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National Main StreetFour Point Approach
Organization
Promotion
Issues
Economic Restructuring
Design
Strategic Integrated Solutions
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Resources (contd)

• State
• ICL Gem Community grants (GCA), Idaho Travel
  Council grants (ITC), Block Grants (HUD or
  State), business leads, tourism development
  assistance
• ITD Scenic Byway grants, technical assistance
• Idaho Parks Recreation recreation/RV/boating
  facilities
• Idaho Fish Game tech assist re.
  hunting/fishing projects
• Dept. of Agriculture technical assistance, pilot
  projects
• Univ. of Idaho Extension community devt,
  ag-related assistance, consumer ed, leadership
  training, etc.
• LCSC/SBDC Business/workforce training,
  hospitality training, business counseling
• ICA, IHC Arts humanities projects
• ICF, INDC Community grants, foundation
  management, training

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Resources (contd)

• Local
• COGs Community planning, business loans, grant
  writing/admin, infrastructure grants/loans
• City Infrastructure services, recreation
  facilities
• County Roads, recreation facilities
• Rec District Recreation facilities/programs
• Local EDC Economic business development
  resources
• Private
• Businesses and corporate sponsors
• Angel and Venture Capital investor groups
• Corporate, conservation and community foundations
• Charitable donations

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Community-Based Planning Advice

• Know the tables where decisions are made (coffee
  club)
• BE AT THOSE TABLES
• Aggressively communicate
• KNOW YOUR MARKETS TARGET THEM
• Know public opinion inform it.
• WELCOME CRITICISM/DEBATE LISTEN RESPOND
  POSITIVELY, NOT DEFENSIVELY
• Use planning process to build understanding/suppor
  t
• Clarify, quantify benefits communicate them
• Engage Community in learning/awareness
• BUILD TEAMS/PARTNERS, NOT WALLS
• Get partners to help advocate
• Treat stakeholders like markets

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Economic Development Players in Idaho

• Idaho Commerce Labor Idaho Dept. of Ag
• Idaho Economic Development Association (IEDA)
• Idaho Rural Partnership (IRP)
• Idaho Small Business Development Centers (SBDC)
• Universities and colleges, including Extension
  K-12 education
• Idaho National Lab, TechHelp
• Tribes
• USDA NRCS/RCD, USDA-RD
• US Economic Development Administration (EDA)
• US Housing Urban Development (HUD)
• Regional Councils of Government (COGs) CEDA,
  Sage, PAC, etc.
• Regional Tourism Associations
• City and County economic development/planning
  staff
• SBA Loan Program, Venture Capital firms, Angel
  investors, banks
• Chambers of Commerce, business trade associations
• Policy-makers (elected officials and staff)

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Potential Roles for Extension

• Portal to ivory tower link to resources w/in
  UI to assist businesses communities
• Assist with community organization, assessment,
  visioning, prioritizing
• Hold up an honest mirror
• Provide training resources for leadership,
  collaboration, communication
• Link communities to outside resources to assist
  them
• Collaborate with other economic/community
  development players at regional/state level to
  avoid duplication, leverage resources
• Link communities to Main Street program?
• Other??

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Go forth and collaborate!
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Questions?
Lorraine Roach The Hingston Roach Group,
Inc. [phone], lroach_at_thrgroup.com
When the rate of change on the outside exceeds
the rate of change on the inside, the end is in
sight! - Jack Welch, former CEO, General Electric