Tools for Strategic Planning: A Journey Towards Neighborhood Improvement

Neighborhood TrainingDecember 3, 2005

Amy Raines, Team LeaderFort Worth Public Health Department/Outreach Division

ObjectivesTo describe the benefits of strategic planning for neighborhood groupsTo identify and explain the steps of creating a strategic planTo introduce Asset Mapping as a planning toolTo share information about community resources to assist in planning

A Journey/ExpeditionAn organized group of people undertaking a journey for a specific purpose

Every journey needs a mapA strategic plan is that map!

Why Plan? Why change?Usually some event, anticipated change, request, need for improvement

Where do you want your neighborhood to go?

The Big Picture ExerciseInstructions:1. You will each be given a piece of data.

2. You will be asked to spend the next 15 minutes figuring out what to do.

Benefits of Strategic PlanningImproves the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness

Encourages teamwork

Facilitates ownership of the process and outcomes

Creates a consensual vision of the future

What is a Strategic Plan?Strategic planning is a continuous and

systematic process where people make decisions about intended future outcomes, how outcomes are to be accomplished, and how success is measured and evaluated.

A roadmap to get you where you are going

Steps of the Journey: Components of a Strategic Plan

1. Organize for Success/Partnership Development

Recruiting your team and planning the trip

2. VisioningDeciding where you are going and how you are going to conduct yourself along the way

3. Assessments/Data CollectionYour roadmap, your GPS, keeping on the right trail

4. Identify Strategic IssuesWhat are the most important things that must be done to accomplish the Vision

5. Formulate Goals and StrategiesExactly how, when, at what level, by whom and by when

6. Action CycleImplementing the strategies

7. EvaluationDid you reach your destination?

VisioningA collaborative and creative process that leads to a shared community vision and common values.

Provides focus, purpose and directionAn overarching goalKept alive throughout the process and beyond

Group Exercise

Your Tour Guides: Assessments and Data Collection

What would you want to know if you moved into a new neighborhood?

Provides facts, information

Collects community perceptions and opinions

Types of AssessmentsNeeds Assessments

Asset Mapping

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

Community Forums, Focus Groups

Health, Demographic, Land use data

Needs AssessmentsFormal tool for identifying local needs

Examples: • City of Fort Worth Community Needs Assessment• United Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County Needs

AssessmentBenefits: rich sources of information to help identify needs and resolve problems of importance to communityDisadvantages: end up with a list of problems

The Road Less Traveled: Asset Mapping

Community development should begin with a systematic assessment of the assets that exist in a community

ResidentsFormal InstitutionsInformal Institutions

An effective tool for understanding the wealth of talent and resources that exist in each community

“Needs” vs. “Assets”

Comparison of Approaches

Seeks to empower peopleResidents have little voice in deciding how to address local concerns

Identifies ways that people can give of their talent

Makes people consumers of services; builds dependence

Builds interdependenciesResults in fragmentation of responses to local needs

Focuses on effectivenessFocuses on deficiencies

AssetsNeeds

KEEPRA: Institutions that Exist in Your Community

Kinship (family)EconomicEducationPolitical (government)ReligiousAssociations

Roadblock: Small Group Exercise on Asset Mapping

S.W.O.T: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and ThreatsStrengths: What is good about your

neighborhood?

Weaknesses: What needs to be improved?

Opportunities: How can the strengths be used to improve the weaknesses?

Threats: What situations exist that may endanger the future?

Community Forums/SurveysAsk the questions:

What is important to our neighborhood?What is preventing the neighborhood from moving forward?What would encourage people to get involved?

How to get this information:• Personal Interviews at community events• Short surveys as part of give-always• Windshield survey• Collection of print material from the neighborhood

Additional Sources of DataExisting Needs Assessments

City of Fort Worth Community Needs AssessmentUnited Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County Community Assessment

U.S. CensusCrime Rate: Your Neighborhood Police Officer Assigned to your area is the best source of this informationHealth DataChamber of CommercePlanning Department

Back on the Road Again: Identification of Strategic Issues

Uses information gathered from assessments to identify top issues

Different Methods to identify issues:

Large group processSmall group meeting prior to larger meetingHomework assignments

Tip: Utilize different learning styles. People walk around room with assessment findings posted on wall. Write down top 5 issues, then consolidate similar issues together

Not all Issues are Strategic IssuesA Strategic Issue:

poses a threat, presents an opportunity, or requires a changerequires actioninvolves conflict or tension between current and future capacities, actual and desired conditionsmust be conditions about which participants can do something abouttend to be complex and will have more than one solutioninvolves more than one organization

Example of Strategic Issues1. Lack of Community

InvolvementAccess and Availability of Health ServicesStreet ConditionStray AnimalsTrashSpeedingLazy people

2. Drug and Alcohol Abuse

Prostitution

3. Lack of Supervision and Activities for Children

Gangs

4. HousingCondition of homesDrug HousesVacant housesAbsentee landlords

Rest Stop: Time to Formulate Goals and Objectives

What do we want to achieve by addressing this strategic issues?

How do we want to achieve it?

What action is needed?

What resources are needed?

Goals and ObjectivesGoals:

A quantified statement of a desired future state or conditionBroad statementNot measurable, but attainableLong-term

Objectives:Answers who, what, at what level and by what time.SpecificMeasurableTime-limitedShort term

How to Write an Objective:

To ______ ______ ______ by ______.Action Outcome Cost or level Date

Must be performance, behavior or action orientedMust be precise in languageMust be clear and state the level, condition or standardMust have outcomesMust have time frameAction steps follow objectives

Examples of Goals and ObjectivesGoal: Improve the physical environment of the

neighborhood.Objective:

To improve the physical appearance of the neighborhood by publicly recognizing residences that have exemplary maintenance or improvements by placing signs in selected locations quarterly.

Additional ExamplesGoal: To increase community involvement in

neighborhood activities.

Objective: To recruit 25 neighbors into the the Citizens on Patrol program by December 2006.

Implementation/Action PlanSpecific actions you will take to accomplish objectivesSame Example:

Action Steps:• Identify number of current COP members• Contact Neighborhood Police Officer and set training date• Decide recruitment plan: flyers, presentations, door-to-door

canvassing• Recruit Participants• Hold Training and collect information about participants

The Destination: EvaluationHow will you know when you have arrived?

Through evaluation

Did you get where you were trying to go?

Putting It all TogetherGoal: To increase community involvement in the neighborhood.

Objective: To recruit 25 neighbors into the Citizens on Patrol program by December 2006.

Action Steps:• Identify number of current COP members• Contact Neighborhood Police Officer and set training date• Decide recruitment plan: flyers, presentations, door-to-door canvassing• Recruit Participants• Hold Training and collect information about participants

Evaluation Measure: number of people that were recruited by neighborhood association and trained, collected by sign-in sheets

Once the Plan is in Place, you are ready to go!

Questions?

List of Tools

What Date to Collect and Where to Find ItHow to Conduct a SWOT AnalysesHow to Write Objectives and GoalsSample Questions For Community SurveySample Questions for Visioning ExerciseList of Additional Resources

ReferencesAchieving Healthier Communities through MAPP: A User's Handbook

http://www.naccho.org/pubs/detail.cfm?id=195

Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets (Paperback)by John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight

Zoom by Istvan Banyai