By Mary Beth West, APR
We’ve focused some of our blog posts this month on the topic of public relations’ impact on local community development.
As business enterprises in and of themselves, municipal entities and the organizations that support them – such as chambers of commerce, industrial boards and special economic development initiatives – must have a cohesive business plan in order to achieve prosperity for a local community.
Some interesting and rather challenging aspects drive how these entities must operate along these lines:
- Achieving buy-in and unity – Because of the diversity of stakeholders within any community, one of the foundational pieces of getting a cohesive business plan together rests with the buy-in part. Different stakeholders inevitably want different things from their community’s future, and even if the end-game is relatively agreed-upon, there may be a dozen different opinions as to strategy and methods. Strong, collaborative leadership in a community is absolutely essential in arriving at the core business plan, inclusive of goal, objectives, strategies and tactics.
- Looking long, long-term – Local cities and regions know better than any other types of organizations that you can’t just flip a switch with the creation of a business plan and suddenly achieve all you’ve set out to be. These groups’ leaderships must be visionary in their approach, easily looking 20, 30, even 50 years into the future to develop their game plan for infrastructure development. That infrastructure ultimately has to build, attract and retain the types of business and industry that will make their community produce the quality of life desired for current and future generations.
- Creating an effective brand – Mobilizing a city or region’s business plan with an effective marketing program represents a critical component of building the area’s future. So few regions get to the point of creating a strategy that works. Often, a cohesive brand and supporting message never gels because the community just can’t ever agree what they want to be or how they want to leverage their assets (i.e. the buy-in and unity problem). Other times, the message that’s ultimately developed just isn’t authentic . . . it doesn’t ring true with the decision-makers potentially locating their businesses in the area, for example.
I participated a few weeks ago in a terrific program hosted by Leadership Blount, “Generations at Work,” which was hosted at the Blount campus of Pellissippi State. Attendees from late-teens in age through four generations up (Millenials, Generation X, Boomers, Matures) were in attendance, all discussing how Blount County will be impacted by the needs of an age-diverse community.
Each generational group was asked to break into individual sessions to discuss what the top community priority should be. Interestingly, all of the groups unanimously arrived at education as a priority, if not the priority, of the future.
This type of exercise involving community members as well as decision-makers is an excellent example of how communities can launch an effort to develop a strong business plan for their futures. For an initiative of this sort, the best public relations plan evolves from the inside-out.
