Town of Natick, Massachusetts

Honoring Our Past. Planning Our Future.
Natick 360 Strategic Planning Process
Blackerby Associates served as project manager and facilitator for this two-years-long municipal strategic planning process. The Natick 360 process design was similar to the design used for the Town of Fountain Hills, Arizona (see below). The final product, a five-year strategic plan for the Town of Natick, was adopted by the 120-member Town Meeting in May, 2008.

The video at right features the volunteer co-chairs of the Natick 360 Strategic Planning Oversight Committee, Craig Ross and David Parish. They discuss some of the processes and results of the Natick 360 strategic planning initiative. 7:47

Town of Fountain Hills, Arizona

Our Town. Our Choices. A Road Map to the Future.
Citizen-Driven Strategic Planning Process
Blackerby Associates served as project manager and facilitator for this year-long (2005) process. The result was a widely-accepted 5-year Strategic Plan for The Town of Fountain Hills, a Phoenix suburb of 24,000 just east of Scottsdale, Arizona. Goals of the process were:

• Inclusiveness: Broad citizen involvement included nearly 1,600 citizens, a public kick-off event, two Town Hall events, key informant survey, speakers bureau, youth visioning event, four issue workshops, random-sample survey and three Town Council study sessions.
• Simplicity: Four reports, a web site, three newsletters and myriad press releases were written in simple, every-day language, so that any citizen could understand the key issues and participate in the process.
• Financially responsible: Rather than a pie-in-the-sky wish-list of amenities, the final Strategic Plan presented citizens with strategic choices that included annual per-household cost estimates. As a result, citizens were very selective in mediating between amenities and tax revenues.
• Realistic implementation: The final Strategic Plan is divided into two implementation periods covering the first two years and the last three years of the five-year planning horizon.

To follow-up on the Fountain Hills strategic planning process, Blackerby Associates facilitated annual strategic planning retreats in 2006, 2007 and 2008, both for the Town Council and for the Town's senior staff.

City of Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix Workforce Connection – Youth Programs
The Phoenix Workforce Connection is the federal Workforce Development Act program in the City of Phoenix. The City and its contractors provide one-stop centers, and deliver programs for businesses, job-seekers and youth. The City had undergone a strategic planning process, and then in 2006 engaged Blackerby Associates to help it implement that strategic plan.

Blackerby Associates facilitated several meetings with the City, contractor staff and the Youth Programs Committee to develop tactical plans that would lead to implementing the strategic plan.

Community Services Division Strategic and Tactical Plans
The Community Services Division helps poor people deal with crises, longer-term survival and eventual emergence from poverty. Challenges included: increasing innovation; collaborating with not-for-profit and faith-based agencies; increasing public awareness; improving agency organization, particularly regarding programs for people who are homeless; increasing employee productivity and morale; standardizing management practices; and improving case management practices.

Blackerby Associates designed and facilitated strategic and tactical planning processes to help the Division identify these challenges, develop strategies to meet them, and develop the tactical objectives to implement the strategies. The process included a plan-to-plan, environmental scan, focus groups with employees, customers and other stakeholders, facilitated strategic planning retreat, validation survey of issues and priorities, and facilitation of tactical objectives and priorities by the management team.

Senior Services Division Strategic and Tactical Plans
The Senior Services Division faced new challenges as it moved to a new phase of the Division's operations: new facilities are opening, financed by an earlier bond issue; demographic changes resulting from the maturity of the oldest of the Baby Boom generation; high staff turnover and burnout; unstable funding sources; low public awareness; unorganized constituencies.

Blackerby Associates designed and facilitated strategic and tactical planning processes to help the Division identify these challenges, develop strategies to meet them, and develop the tactical objectives to implement the strategies. Elements of the processes included a plan-to-plan, environmental scan, focus groups of employees, customers and other stakeholders, three facilitated one-day strategic planning retreats, facilitated work sessions between retreats, facilitated development of tactical objectives and priorities with the management team.

Youth Opportunities Unit Strategic Plan
The Youth Opportunities Unit (now Youth Services Division) provides counseling services to in-school youth, promotes safe schools, helps young parents achieve self-sufficiency, and other programs targeting the City's youth.

Blackerby Associates designed and facilitated strategic planning processes to help the Division identify these challenges, develop strategies to meet them, write goals and strategic objectives. The process included a plan-to-plan, environmental scan, focus groups with YOU employees, facilitated planning retreat, and a validation survey of issues and priorities.

Education Division: Head Start Re-funding Grant Application
Every three years, Head Start grantees must submit a new grant application justifying their program and budgets. The City of Phoenix operates eight Head Start sites directly, and subcontracts with 13 community-based organizations to operate an additional 67 sites. Together the 75 sites serve nearly 3,200 children.

Blackerby Associates facilitated representatives of the City and all 13 provider agencies in a strategic planning retreat to establish measurable objectives for the 3-year grant period. Blackerby Associates wrote a City-wide needs analysis, including an analysis of the demographics, disability needs, social services needs and accessibility, available resources, City-wide objectives, and student recruitment practices. Each Head Start provider agency wrote a description of its programs and an analysis of its specific needs. Blackerby Associates heavily edited these provider analyses, so that the entire document appeared to be written by a single person, with a consistent style, graphic design and organizational schema. Based on provider-submitted materials, Blackerby Associates also wrote a volume of budget narratives, describing agency expenditure patterns using a consistent style and organizational schema.