How can your city, county or region give its residents the future they deserve? A prosperous and sustainable future? A society that connects them, engages them and brings out their best? A culture that supports their ambitions while caring for their needs?
Local governments have plans and strategies. But the future that your residents deserve is bigger than government alone can provide. The shortest path to that future is to learn how successful cities and regions have accelerated into a better future.
Advisory Services from ICF
For over 20 years, ICF has evaluated more than 200 communities around the world to understand their best practices and define their development models. Based on that experience, our advisors provide practical guidance in turning ambitious objectives into integrated efforts, at a scale that matches your community’s capacity. We are not in the business of surveys or focus groups, policy prescriptions or regulatory reviews. For strategies in development, we contribute our knowledge of what has worked for hundreds of cities and regions. For approved strategies, we provide expert advice on activating your assets, organizations and opportunities to accomplish its goals.
Getting Staff and Partners on the Same Page
When it comes time to execute a strategy, leaders, staff and external partners frequently start with different expectations and wind up on different paths. That wastes time and erodes the trust on which progress is based. ICF services can provided a critical advantage:
From Wish List to Actionable Projects
The newly elected Mayor of a small city entered office with a long list of priorities to grow the economy and generate opportunity for its people. But the city staff she inherited lacked the experience and capacity to translate vision into results. Partnering with her Chief Administrative Officer, we educated staff on the fundamentals of developing an innovative, knowledge-based economy, then guided them in identifying their assets and determining how best to leverage them for growth. The Mayor’s priorities became actionable projects carefully designed to interact and support each other’s success.
Activating Hidden Assets
A regional government provided shared services to multiple municipalities, from urban centers to rural villages. It sought to activate government, educational and private-sector assets scattered across the region to accelerate growth and improve quality of living for all. Advising a working group of municipal staff, educators and businesspeople, we defined practical challenges and opportunities in ways that all could understand. We shared the experience of comparable communities and recommended best practices they could adapt for the region. With shared expectations and a common language, the group sharply accelerated what the region could accomplish and gained global recognition for its development.
Mapping the Road Ahead
Most municipalities are good at planning: researching options, setting goals and determining budgets. But the skills that develop a new park or parking lot can be a poor fit for the job of developing a new economy and gaining community support for its growth. ICF helps municipalities and regions move from vision and goals to implementation that builds a strong foundation for progress.
Designing an Innovation Ecosystem
A midsize city depended on government agencies, tourism and a major university to sustain its economy – while promising new companies in life sciences, maritime tech and media flew under the radar. An ambitious new economic development strategy sought to change the situation, and the community invited ICF to advise on turning strategy into a roadmap for implementation. After interviewing the key players in government, education and business, we led a workshop that gave them practical experience in designing an innovation ecosystem that accelerates young companies and creates incentives to retain graduates. The workshop evolved into a task force that developed a formal ecosystem plan and funding requirements for presentation to Council.
Building a Regional Development Program
A large region, made up of a dozen small cities and rural townships, sought to level the economic playing field with nearby metropolitan areas. Working with a regional foundation, we evaluated each community’s assets, policies and programs. Workshops gave community leaders insight into what peer communities were doing and opportunities to learn from successes and failures. More importantly, the workshops and evaluations gave the foundation the tools to build a strong program for regional development, ranging from strategy consulting to project funding, that helped each community advance.