What goes into Strategic Planning? Turns out, a lot!

*LSA staff reviewing our previous Strategic Plan during the Visioning Workshop in October 2023*

At the end of 2022, Living Streets Alliance Board and staff launched a year-long strategic planning process to lay the vision for LSA’s future. This strategic plan will establish key goal areas and objectives for LSA to focus its energy and resources on for the next 3-5 years. Getting clear on those goal areas and priorities is paramount and we wanted to make sure that we had ample time to engage with people most impacted by transportation inequities in Tucson so that the strategic plan would center and prioritize their needs.

The process

Part I: Internal inventory, reflection, and analysis

The first six months of our strategic planning process included a series of internal workshop and exercises intended to create a clear picture of where LSA is at, why this work is relevant, and how the strategic plan needs to be framed in order to be most relevant and useful. Here’s what that looked like:

Step 1 - The Wall of Wonder

The process kicked off with board and staff creating a “wall of wonder” for LSA. This was an exercise to reflect on the past and map out where LSA has been over over the past three years and also what was happening externally that affected the work and the world around us. Through mapping those things combined we noticed and named key turning points for the organization.

Step 2 - Scanning the horizon

After reflecting on the past, board and staff did another mapping activity called “scanning the horizon” which encouraged us to think about what will happen within the next three years at multiple levels: within the organization; locally (Tucson/Southern Arizona); nationally; and internationally/globally. This helped us start to explore what external factors might inform our work and strategies down the road.

Step 3 - Ecocycle

Another key aspect of understanding the organization’s current reality was to look at what LSA is investing its resources in, and to figure out where resources might be shifted or freed up. To do this, we employed something called an Ecocycle, which helped us chart different aspects of the organization in relation to where they are in a lifecycle. Here’s an example of what an Eco Cycle chart looks like:

Here are some key things we noticed once we’d completed LSA’s Ecocycle:

Many of our “legacy” programs (ex: Cyclovia Tucson and Safe Routes to School) were straddling Maturity and Creative Destruction, stuck in the Rigidity Trap.
Our most populous quadrant was Gestation, filled with advocacy-related initiatives we’d like to get off the ground, many of which were also stuck in the Poverty Trap, waiting for resources to be Birthed and grown.

From these observations it became really clear that we’ll need to reimagine some big pieces of our work and that we’ll need to shift resources and strategies to move big advocacy from idea (Gestation) into action (Birth).

Step 4 - Pivotal questions + framing

Seeing the past and future mapped out, as well as where LSA’s work and resources currently lie, led to lots of big ideas and questions about how LSA’s work could look in the future. Naturally, the next activity channeled this curiosity through rounds of generating questions and then noticing similarities or themes amongst questions and further distilling and refining them. Ultimately these questions were intended to move us toward identifying a singular most important question for LSA to gain clarity on through the strategic planning process. In the end, it was:

How might we want to evolve our advocacy model in response to the urgent issues in Tucson and what are the implications?

Part II: Centering community voices

One we got clear on the question we needed help answering through the strategic planning process it was time to move on to actually engaging people in the conversation. Here’s what that looked like:

Step 1 - Circles exercise

With the big question in mind, staff and board proceeded with a “Circles” exercise to figure out exactly whose input would be most helpful to gain. This involved brainstorming all of the people, organizations, businesses, neighborhoods, etc. that we wanted to build power with in the future. We mapped out who we already had relationships with, who we wanted to work with but didn’t necessarily have connections to yet, and who might help bridge those relationships. Not surprisingly, this generated a big chart of upward of 100 names, so from there we had to start looking for themes and patterns to create groups or topic areas to prioritize.

Step 2 - Focused conversations

The Circles exercise yielded six stakeholder groups whose input we wanted to absolutely make sure we were centering:

Photo taken from above of a group of 5 people working around a table creating a hand-drawn poster. — *Participants at the Housing Focused Conversation creating a poster of shared themes and priorities*

People with disabilities + disability rights advocates - people living with disabilities, people serving people with disabilities, people advocating for disability rights
Housing advocates - anyone working on housing-related issues or experiencing/having experienced housing instability
Immigrant community - people from Mexico, Central, and South America who have migrated to the U.S. (this intentionally included families and day laborers)
Refugee community - people who have relocated to Tucson as refugees, people who work at organizations that work closely with different refugee populations in Tucson
The Youth - teenagers, young adults, junior college-age people
Schools and families - people with young children, people who work in schools and/or with kids

Knowing that engaging authentically would take shape differently with each of these groups, we developed a Focused Conversation that could meet people where they were. We then went on to organize these Focused Conversations with each group at a place, time, and using a format that was customized to meet their specific needs. You can view the posters generated from each Focused Conversation here. (Note: Unfortunately, due to time constraints and unforeseen circumstances we were not able to convene the final two groups: The Youth, and Schools & Families.)

Step 3 - Large visioning workshop

An intention of hosting the Focused Conversations first was to bring themes, language, and learnings into the design of the Large Visioning Workshop. The Large Visioning Workshop used Appreciative Inquiry and was designed to to uncover strengths, dream the future, and clarify organizational mission, vision, and values. Various partners, supporters, collaborators, and stakeholders attended and worked together to produce posters that you can view here.

Step 4 - Temperature check

A hand-written sentence at the top says "What should LSA focus on in the coming years?" followed by instructions that say "Vote for two and share additional ideas if you like." Underneath is are four circles, each with a theme and dot stickers — *Snapshot of the interactive board from Cyclovia, Fall 2023*

One final (albeit small) piece of community engagement took place during our Fall 2023 Cyclovia event. We invited participants to weigh in on ideas/themes emerging out of strategic planning, mainly as a temperature-check, and also to provide space for additional ideas and priorities. People were asked “What should LSA focus on in the coming years?” and could vote for their top priority amongst:

Vision Zero: a campaign to eliminate traffic crashes and fatalities
Education: walking- and biking-focused education in schools
Transit: creating a great public transit system
Open Streets: expanding events like Cyclovia

Interestingly enough, Education has the most votes, although all options had a decent amount of support.

Part III: Data analysis, interpretation, and strategizing

As you can see, this has been an extensive process to date, with the final step being to have everything we learned inform our future work. We’ve already completed Steps 1 and 2, below, and will be sharing out the new Strategic Plan in early 2024, so stay tuned!

1 - Identfying key themes

A combination of board and staff review all of the data collected over the year—posters, notes, feedback—and generate an overview of the key findings. Here’s a synopsis:

Throughout the LSA Strategic Planning process we heard from a wide variety of community stakeholders who collectively outlined what the built environment of Tucson could look like, feel like, be like through our advocacy. The themes and priorities that rose to the surface were designs and policies that are centered on people, pedestrians, and community connection; which would ultimately lead to increased safety, accessibility, friendliness, and ease as people walk, bike, and use public transportation across our city. This also includes improved transportation connectivity and incorporating more elements of the natural world in order to create a quieter urban environment filled with human connection and joy instead of the stress of car traffic noise and air pollution.

With this vision, streets will be safer for people walking, rolling and bicycling to cross and ride along as roads have undergone changes leading to more effective public transit and protected bike lanes for a range of users. The nexus of transportation and housing will be in the forefront of the integrative Tucson design process. Renovation of the transportation system will be intricately linked to development of housing units that have affordable rents and mortgages and in coalition with those working on the frontlines of the housing crisis.

2 - Aligning mission, vision, and values

Staff and board look at the themes and also the specific words, images, and ideas generated by everyone engaged in the process to revise Living Streets Alliance’s mission, vision, and values.

3 - Consensus workshop

This is a workshop that helps us arrive at broad Strategic Goal Areas for LSA to focus on as well as key objectives within each Goal Area for the next three years.

4 - Board adoption of the new Strategic Plan and 2024-2026 Strategic Roadmap

This is the final step in the process, where the LSA Board of Directors looks at the recommended Strategic Plan and either adopts or refines it. The Strategic Plan will include a Strategic Roadmap (goals and strategies) and revised Mission, Vision, & Values. From there, staff will get to work developing a 90-day work plan, realigining our work and priorities with those outlined in the Plan.

We are deeply grateful to Bryn Jones of Elan Consulting for designing and guiding the strategic planning process. We’d also like to thank Vitalyst Health Foundation and Southern Arizona IDEA Funders Collaborative (through The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona) for providing underwriting that was essential for convening and hosting the focused conversations and larger visioning workshop. Thank you for your collaboration, through partnership, and support!