COMMUNITY DEVELOPMET PRIMER
Part III: “Leadership & Planning”By: Stan Foster, PARC Resources President
—Thomas A. Edison
One of the greatest inventors in American history understood that opportunity abounds, but only through effective leadership and a plan can you turn that opportunity into results.
In organizing your capital campaign project, it is essential that you build a good plan, providing the necessary road map to your destination. Funders, supporters and volunteers all need to understand the plan leading to success so that they may contribute their leadership to the effort.
Effective plans identify milestones, options for taking alternative steps, and estimates of the effort necessary to achieve your goal. Plans are dynamic documents that can and should be modified to reflect the realities on the ground. An effective plan will be developed in a manner that is inclusive of your core leadership group and includes as many people in the process as possible. A good plan should give each participant in the capital campaign a basic idea understanding of the goal you wish to achieve, the process the group will be expected to engage in and a timetable for completing the various tasks identified in the plan.
Plans are only as good as the process you undertake to create them. Plans developed in a vacuum will most likely sit on the shelf and have little relevance to your leadership team or the community you are trying to enlist in your project. Planning sometimes seems like a process where you take one step forward and two steps back, but it is this give and take that helps clarify what can be achieved and what is unrealistic. So, despite the challenge of conducting an open planning process, a community development project is best served by this open exchange of ideas and strategies.
It has been our great privilege to have worked with some really talented community planners over the years and they seem to share a common trait. They are effective communicators who honor everyone’s participation and understand that for a project to succeed you need to have a common vision. This collective vision can best be achieved by planning together and compromise. PARC Resources values our experience with so many fine leaders and has the experience, knowledge, and skills to help you achieve your community goal. If we can assist you in planning for your community success, please do not hesitate to call or email us today.
Next month I will offer some insights on how to implement your community development plan.