What do you think will have the greatest impact on local government in the next 5 to 10 years? Some of your peers identified these forces:

• Fiscal challenges.
• Declining revenue sources.
• Global, national, and regional economic trends.

If the ICMA Strategic Planning Task Force is to keep its finger on the pulse of your most challenging issues, ICMA needs your commitment to be engaged in the conversation.

A significant responsibility of the current ICMA Strategic Planning Task Force is to seek that engagement through many channels, including focus groups, surveys, direct member contact, and more. Indeed, the information-gathering process really never stops because the environment in which we operate never stands still.

Your input is what makes the strategic planning process work. When the task force requests your feedback over the coming months, please make time to respond. As you can attest from your own resident-engagement initiatives, well-thought-out strategic plans require significant participation to remain meaningful and relevant. Ultimately, ICMA’s executive team will use the gathered data to make important decisions affecting the organization.

A Vital Plan and Process

ICMA has been guided by a strategic plan since 1985. The latest update to the plan was adopted in 2008, a time when the United States was in the middle of a global financial crises—an event almost as significant as the Great Depression, creating an environment of tremendous uncertainty. As times change, environmental forces may also change, necessitating a thorough review of the plan to verify its applicability in the current environment.   

In April 2015 President Jim Bennett and President-Elect Pat Martel appointed 40 individuals to serve on the latest ICMA Strategic Planning Task Force. These individuals represent 21 states, Canada, and New Zealand. The group includes 21 women; people of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds; and different jurisdictional sizes. A talented and diverse group of professionals was chosen from an applicant pool of nearly 200 volunteers to tackle this important task. 

On June 12, 2015, the task force held its kick-off meeting in San Antonio, Texas, initially spending time acquainting task force members with each other and with the organization. Then the group jumped into its primary charge—namely, developing a work plan that everyone could agree to; identifying what resources would be needed to complete the assigned task; and drafting a plan that would be acceptable to the ICMA Executive Board and ultimately to ICMA’s membership.     

The task force divided into four working subcommittees (Trends/Drivers, Strengths/Weaknesses, Opportunities/Threats, and Communication/Engagement) to develop, over several months, a comprehensive environmental scan.  

As a result of the initial meeting, the task force set out to obtain member input using surveys, a booth at the annual conference in Seattle, and focus groups. 

On December 11-12, 2016, the task force held a joint meeting with the ICMA Executive Board to begin discussions on the environmental scan; agree on member engagement strategies; and, based on those results, frame a survey to gather further membership input. These conversations enabled task force members to identify top-tier forces affecting communities, local government, and the profession.

Areas identified as affecting local government include:

• Public trust or lack thereof.
• Cost of service delivery.
• Changing demographics.
• Social integration needs and challenges. 

Forces impacting the profession include:

• The need to develop new leadership skills.
• The public disconnect in understanding our profession.
• A growing expectation for increased diversity.
• The need to fill the pipeline with future local government professionals.

The proposed strategic plan will serve as the governance tool the executive team uses when making key decisions affecting our organization. In the second phase of its work, the task force will analyze how well ICMA is poised to meet the challenges of the identified forces and whether new structures, business lines, and action plans are needed to improve ICMA’s responsiveness and potential for success.

Back to You!

This second phase will include additional data collection and outreach to the membership through various methods. Task force members urge your full and continued participation. We can’t emphasize enough the value of your opinions! The member data we collect will comprise an essential tool that the task force will use as it moves toward identifying the strategies ICMA should pursue in the near future.

So when you receive a questionnaire or survey or are contacted directly by a task force member, please take a few minutes to participate in this very important endeavor. 

Remaining Key Strategic Planning Dates

January – May 2016

• Engage members at regional and international summits to discuss environmental scan and survey results, and to discuss priorities and strategies.  

February – July 2016

• Present strategic planning process and progress to state associations, affiliate meetings, and regional summits.

May – June 2016

• Meet to develop priorities and strategies based on feedback. Provide interim report to executive board and to membership.

July – September 2016

• Conduct member engagement strategy to obtain feedback on priorities, strategies, and future directions.

September 2016

• Meet during annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri, to review survey findings and develop recommendations.

December 2016

• The executive board and the task force will meet jointly to review task force recommendations. 

February 2017

• The executive board will begin discussion on steps to implement the newly approved strategic plan.