Anytime is a great time to start thinking about your community or organization's short and long term goals.  UERPC has the staff and resources to help your community or group bring great ideas together into a workable and successful action plan.  Planning can take many forms from large projects, such as comprehensive planning and hazard mitigation planning, to smaller facilitation and public engagement projects.  The planning process generally involves (1) data and background information collection; (2) facilitating and compiling stakeholder input and identifying their priorities through a variety of methods including meetings, surveys and focus groups; and (3) creating a final document or action plan.

Examples of plans include:

• Long range comprehensive plans
• Strategic plans for community or nonprofit leadership
• Capital improvement plans
• Riverfront, downtown or other significant district master plans
• Community marketing plans
• Community wellness plans
• Safe Routes to School plans
• Park and recreation plans
• Hazard mitigation Plans
• Housing needs assessments
• Business plans

Taking the time to plan and involve community members leads to projects and activities that are supported by community members!  UERPC can also assist communities with Urban Renewal Plans, Urban Revitalization Plans and City Ordinance updates.

We would be happy to visit with you about our planning and facilitation services, please contact Rachelle Howe or Michelle Barness for more information.

"My reservations about my part in doing a Comprehensive Plan for Hawkeye were put to rest at our first meeting.  Seeing how the whole process is laid out made sense and opened the door to active, interesting and informative meetings.  To bond our team we created a name, Vision Hawkeye, and had T-shirts made.  After that Karla guided us through the process.  Every step showed a purpose and later meetings showed us results. The one thing I was impressed with was the need to have the community all working in the same direction for common goals. The city’s statistics and community input really helped us lay that out.  The final comprehensive plan, and it is comprehensive, is easy to understand and involves all of our local organizations to move Hawkeye in the right direction."

Respectfully,
Leon Dietzenbach, Vision Hawkeye member

Disaster preparedness is nothing new to governments, businesses, and development organizations. The well-laid plans to be used in case of fire, flood, or storm are commonplace. They help to provide a blueprint for action at a moment of crisis when an existing strategy can be a thing of comfort for those dealing with the unthinkable. Of course, the types of disastrous situations have expanded — from terrorism to cyberattack to, now, pandemic.

Resilience planning, though, is another matter. It recognizes that disasters and difficulties will happen, that immediate response is necessary, but that long-term implications will require a different set of strategies and actions to ensure ongoing viability, whether for a business, a government, or a development organization.