Expert Coaching on Developing a Community Plan

Vibrant Communities’ proven appreciativ developing a common agenda e inquiry approach supports poverty reduction groups to collaboratively establish a community-wide common agenda and poverty reduction plan. Our approach has been developed over two decades of export coaching engagements between Tamarack’s founder and Co-CEO, Paul Born, and a diverse range of cities and communities across Canada and beyond.

Municipalities and community organizations regularly develop, implement, and renew local strategic plans. However, a key challenge to the traditional strategic planning approach is that stakeholders and community members are often hesitant to undertake or buy into a vision that was developed through a process that did not meaningfully include them.

Engaging a diverse range of stakeholders, and incorporating their perspectives, motivations, and aspirations, bring incredible value to both the process and the resulting poverty reduction plan. Still, creating a common agenda is no easy task.

Vibrant Communities overcomes this challenge by supporting poverty reduction groups to strategically develop community-wide common agendas that embed a comprehensive community engagement process builds buy-in from their onset. Typically conducted over a 12-18 month time periods, this process empowers partners to co-identify priority areas, undertake quick wins, and set themselves up for development of a common agenda that all parties agree to.

Milestones of this collaborative approach to developing a community-wide common agenda and poverty reduction plan include:

Convening a core team and taking stock
Planning and hosting a Top 100 event
Revising a group’s governance structure
Engaging the whole community
Writing a plan
Planning a big event to launch the plan

Poverty reduction practitioners recognize that to move the needle on a complex issues, such as poverty, they must engage individuals and organizations from across all sectors – public, private, non-profit and citizens. Vibrant Communities’ collaborative approach brings people together to learn, dialogue, and propose collaborative solutions. The process sets a community up so that by the time their plan is launched, it is already being implemented by a diverse group of committed partners.

Vibrant Communities – Cities Reducing Poverty membership includes access to Tamarack’s Expert Coaching Centre where members can obtain intensive support towards developing a community-wide common agenda and poverty reduction plan.