by Terry L. Besser
Assistant professor and extension sociologist
Iowa State University Extension to Communities
1. It's required in the Contract with America.
2. Towns with strategic plans may be eligible to win an all expense paid trip to Minot, N.D., for two lucky residents.
3. The governor wants each community to have one by the year 2000.
4. Your town could win the coveted "Best Community Strategic Plan" award.
5. All the best towns are doing it.
6. Strategic plans provide a focus for limited resources.
7. They help communities decide which services and programs to emphasize and which to eliminate or cut back.
8. A plan can renew and invigorate a community's sense of direction and mission. It can inspire people.
9. The strategic planning process builds community spirit and strengthens commitment to achieving community goals.
10. A strategic plan increases the community's control over its own future.
How can a community strategic plan offer all of these wonderful benefits? Think of a community as a group of people going on a trip. A strategic plan is both the trip destination and the travel plan. Without the strategic plan, the community doesn't know where it's going, how it's going to get there, or what it will do when it arrives. Resources are wasted and people become demoralized.
And if you think your community doesn't need a plan because no one wants to take a trip, think again. Small towns today do not have the luxury of staying where they are. If they're not moving ahead, they're falling behind (i.e., they experience a decline in population, economic base, the number of downtown establishments, household income, etc.). In either case, the community is going somewhere.
Strategic planning is a process of determining what a community wants to be in the future and how it will get there. To be done right, it requires time, pre-planning, wide community involvement and input and follow through. Plans contrived by a few town leaders in a smoke-filled room, or plans that are put together one morning over a breakfast meeting, are worse than no plan at all. They raise people's expectations with little possibility of delivering on the promises proposed in the plan. Following are the steps required to develop an effective strategic plan.
* Get organized. Get commitment from people and form a planning team.
* Take stock. Review community history, strengths, weakness and threats.
* Develop a strategy. Select goals, discuss and prioritize alternatives, develop an action plan.
* Organize the implementation team. Get support from others, develop a time plan, decide who is responsible for what.
* Implement the plan.
* Evaluate and modify the plan.
Listing the steps in this way makes the process look simpler than it is. Each step requires weeks or months of planning and work. ISU Extension to Communities specializes in helping communities through this process. Contact your local county extension education director for the name and phone number of ISU Extension's community development expert in your region. Other resources to consult are the University of Northern Iowa's Institute for Decision Making and outreach departments of private colleges or local community colleges.
Unfortunately, none of these sources, nor the governor's office, gives a prize for the best community strategic plan. The only, and most important, reward for a good plan is the difference it makes to the future of your community.
Contacts:
Terry L. Besser, ISU
Extension Sociology, (515) 294-6508
Del Marks, ISU Extension
Communication Systems, (515) 294-9807
