What is Strategic Planning?
Most communities have little ability to control the changes affecting them. What they can control is how they anticipate and respond to those changes. Most successful communities view change as an opportunity instead of a threat; they anticipate the changes that might occur in their community, they build a shared community vision about how to respond, and then work together to build that future. Having a common vision for the future, shared by all within the community, provides the ability to keep ahead of change.
Penn State Cooperative Extension offers several educational strategic visioning programs to help your community or organization anticipate and respond to change.
Programs
Charting the Future of Our Community
Charting the Future of Our Community is a strategic visioning process designed to help communities plan for and control their future. It uses the broad diversity of viewpoints in a community to discover a common vision for the future, and to develop a plan of action to achieve that community vision. The Charting program is facilitated at the local level by trained facilitators (typically Penn State Cooperative Extension staff), and involves 25 to 40 participants (reflecting the wide range of and often conflicting perspectives in the community) in a series of four three-hour meetings
Choosing Our Direction
Choosing Our Direction is a strategic planning tool for groups or organizations to become more effective by developing or redeveloping goals and objectives for their future. It helps groups identify who they are, what they currently do, what they want to do in the future, and develop a usable plan for getting there. The Choosing program is facilitated at the local level by trained facilitators (typically Penn State Cooperative Extension staff), and involves a series of four three-hour meetings.
Community Profile Information
An important component of both the Charting the Future of Our Community and the Choosing Our Direction programs is an accurate assessment of the community, including its population, economy, local governance, etc. The Community Profile Information is intended to be used with the program workbooks.
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