We spoke with five communities who had recently gone through the process of developing a community-wide poverty reduction strategy. We compiled and compared their work plans against the actual time it took – from the moment they agreed to undertake a strategy using a community-wide approach to its public launch – and reflected together on why it was important for them to make the extra time where they did.
Here are a few of the commonly recurring surprise time-takers:
Some accelerators of time were also noted:
The new tool, Poverty Reduction Strategy Timelines, is a compilation of timelines providing a point-of-reference for multi-sectoral poverty reduction initiatives who are planning to develop their own strategies, sharing commonly reported un- or under-anticipated pockets of extra time.
While each community is different with a different journey and will encounter its own unexpected twists and turns, the goal is to provide organizers with insights and examples from across Canada to assist in setting plans and expectations.
Once you have explored the planned and actual timeframes as well as the areas of unexpected time, reflect on how you can use these lessons when creating your own team’s work plan. Where can you build in extra time or anticipate needing to be flexible with dates?
Are there sections of work that you could use extra resources or advice from Tamarack or Cities Reducing Poverty members help you advance through the trickier areas of the work?
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