Crucial Steps in Community Development, Part 1: Shared Vision

I was having a conversation with a friend and long-time business associate the other day, and we got to talking about difficulties in executing our jobs. I'm a designer and brand strategist, and he directs a group of communities to help with economic growth. Because our jobs are so different, you'd expect our problems to be different. But something interesting happened during the conversation. We realized that many of the problems we experienced in our work – be it with branding clients or with helping a community attract new jobs – came down to the same core problem: vision.

You'd think that almost all of our jobs would just be getting down in the weeds and doing the work, but a huge part of it is coming up with and selling a vision. But why is a common vision so important? Simply put, if everyone isn't working towards the same goals, then nothing will change. Communities are just that: communities. Even if you're some obscenely rich tycoon who is trying to turn your town into a better, more beautiful place, you're not going to get very far without the town on your side. Coming up with a clear vision and being able to express it in words is a crucial first step to that.

So how do you come up with a vision statement?

This is actually the easy part. Most people involved with community development have a dream for what they want their community to be like. When you close your eyes and imagine your town the way you want it to be, what does it look like? What kind of businesses are flourishing? What are the people doing on their days off? What sort of things need to change for all that to happen? You take all that, and you roll it into one sentence. “A cleaner, more beautiful downtown that embraces food and art culture.” “A bustling town that provides healthy wages through local businesses.” “A community that restores and maintains its heritage and history.” These aren't daunting essays detailing every thing you ever want to do, they're just simple statements on what you, as a community, want to be.

The hard part is selling it. How do we do that?

This is a problem you have to attack from a couple of angles. An important angle is research. You have to know your stuff going into this. You can't just say, “A city that supports up-and-coming technology by providing much-needed infrastructure,” and then not know, roughly, what kind of infrastructure and how much it's going to cost. You don't need to know every detail, but you need know what you're talking about. These are going to be the first questions that, for instance, a town council is going to ask. And as many of you probably know, there are council members and local community members who scoff at the idea of spending anything to grow the community in a new direction. And it's not without good cause – the burden development places on a community's finances is nothing to take lightly. Poorly executed development initiatives can stunt a town's growth for years. So you have to be willing to do the legwork and get all your ducks in a row before you present your vision. You need to know why your vision is what your community should be moving towards, and you need to know how to take the steps in that direction.

The second way to approach this is through popular support. This is where our work comes in with branding. Spreadsheets and number crunching may work on the fiscally-minded council member, but it's going to fall flat in the arena of public opinion if it doesn't have a real voice. Building your community's brand, understanding it, and utilizing it is how you guarantee that you present your vision with a clear, appealing, and consistent voice.

Once you get enough people on the same page (I say “enough” because “everyone” will never, ever happen) the gargantuan task of making this vision a reality becomes a lot easier to manage. Having the support of the community behind you means that you'll have significantly fewer obstacles on the path.

Now we have to draw the map. Next time we'll talk about developing an action plan.

Keep on loving where you live!