Strategic Plan: Scope of Work
An economic development strategy must be based on two important cornerstones: broad public input and consensus to ensure widespread support of the plan; and a shared vision for the future to guide policies and actions. This proposal is based on these key concepts. The proposal includes five steps:
STEP 1: Obtain Public Input and Review Existing Studies
Public input will be obtained through surveys, town hall meetings, focus groups, and individual interviews with elected officials, business and community leaders, and other key stakeholders. The public input will include:
- Respondents’ opinions on the relative strengths of the County as a place to live, work and play, as well as opportunities for improvement.
- Respondents’ “vision” for the future – what would they like Rabun County to “look like” in 5, 10, 15, or more years?
- Ideas on how to build on Rabun County’s assets and address its challenges.
This combination of surveys and meetings will help ensure that every citizen of Rabun County has an opportunity to provide input, whether they are computer literate or not. For all meetings and public contact, we will follow official COVID-19 protocols in effect at that time.
A project website will be created as a portal for public input and to serve as a clearinghouse for ongoing project information and updates.
STEP 2: Situation Assessment
To create a realistic vision and plan for the future, it is important for all parties to understand the County’s current community and economic development situation and recent trends, and how they compare to other areas and the state. A statistical profile of Rabun County will be created to address these questions including:
- Current demographics and recent trends
- Economic profile including major industries, employment, and income
- Workforce characteristics including educational attainment
- Social factors such as housing and poverty
A S.W.O.T. analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) will be performed based on data analysis and the public input from Step 1 as a basis for developing a strategic plan. The S.W.O.T. analysis will address the strengths and opportunities that Rabun County has to build on for the future, as well as the relative weaknesses and threats that should be addressed to build a prosperous future. Recommendations will be made on how to build on the strengths and address the relative weaknesses.
STEP 3: Establish a Vision
The public input from Step 1, including ideas and opinions on the preferred nature of development in the coming years and what the County will “look like” in the future, will be used as input to develop a shared community vision for the County’s future development. While individual opinions will, of course, vary greatly, in the consulting team’s experience, there are always common themes and threads.
A visioning workshop with the Forward Rabun staff and invited community leaders will be scheduled. The ideas, opinions, themes, and threads from the extensive public input will be summarized and presented, and through group discussions, debate and advocacy, an overarching vision statement for community and economic development in the County will be developed. Goals and recommendations for specific issues that emerge will also be developed. The vision statement will be posted on the project website for public comment before being finalized.
STEP 4: Gap Analysis and Priorities
Using the situation assessment in Step 1 and the vision and goals in Step 3, a “gap analysis” will be performed: where does the County stand now vs. preferences for future growth and development and other community issues? Recommended priorities for bridging the gaps and moving toward the community and economic development vision will be developed.
STEP 5: Strategy and Plan of Action
The final step will be to pull together all of the results from Steps 1 through 4 into an overall strategy and action plan for economic development in Rabun County. It will provide a “roadmap” that Forward Rabun can use to guide its work programs. The strategic plan will include:
- Recommendations for an economic development strategy to meet the vision statement
- The types of industries and economic activities that should be a high priority for recruitment and incubation in the County.
- Economic development marketing recommendations
- Tourism marketing recommendations that help meet the development vision and achieve synergies with the economic development (industry) marketing plan
- Recommendations on community development priorities to support the overall economic development strategy and vision statement
- Compare community development priorities with existing Forward Rabun committees and assign to the appropriate committee or recommend the creation of other committees
- Work with Forward Rabun to select a liaison to each committee – a Forward Rabun staff member, board member, community volunteer or consulting team member – to assist with formulating committee recommendations and action steps to address each issue.
- Develop milestones and review protocols
- Develop a milestone schedule and protocol to regularly review progress and adjust programs as necessary based on what has worked well and what hasn’t.