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A Community-Driven Planning Approach
....for motivating, mobilizing and maximizing engagement and ownership
We developed a framework for a different kind of planning based on what we learned worked best to motivate, mobilize, and maximize community engagement and ownership.
What Makes It Different?
Community-driven or community-led planning is a way of working where the people who live and work in a community decide together what matters, what needs to change, and how to take action.
Instead of plans being created by outside experts or a small group of leaders, everyone affected has a real say and helps shape a collective vision, values, impacts and strategies.
Residents, social profit organizations, businesses, and government are recognized and treated as the experts in their own community. The resulting collective wisdom and ownership ensure plans are more practical, better informed, and more likely to be implemented.
We empower communities by supporting local leadership, organizational and community capacity for a whole-community, sector-connected approach to social, economic, cultural and environmental well-being.
Individual and organizational future-readiness is supported increasing capacity for (1) community and stakeholder-led development, (2) systems-practices, (3) strategic foresight, and (4) digital optimization. We've learned these four components are necessary for the project and systems collaboration and informed decision-making we have experienced as being essential for transformative change and innovation.
Innovative approaches require being bold, perseverance, tenacity and a sprinkle of panic.
-- Michelle Baldwin
Many situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the view changes once you start walking. You don't need all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have the courage to get started.
--James Clear
Leadership today is about courage. Courage to realize our challenges are complex and no one individual, organization, or sector can resolve them on their own. That means we have to let go of the idea that we alone have the answers. Instead, we need to strengthen our individual and organizational competencies in order to become sector connectors who call meetings before we have the answers, aren't intimidated by messy, and can ensure a culture where all voices are heard. Only then, can our collective gifts, experience, and wisdom be focused on building a better future for all.
--Brenda Herchmer
In times of change it is the learners who inherit the future. Those who have finished learning find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
-- Eric Hoffer
