Pursue Your Community’s Vision for the Future

The Five-Year Planning Cycle is a simple and effective process to help your small town or rural community achieve positive, lasting change.

This powerful approach lets you focus your energy and resources on meaningful action. The Five-Year Planning Cycle gives you an effective and efficient way to achieve progress, engage your community and deliver results.

Benefits of the Five-Year Planning Cycle:

Proactive Approach

The long-term focus of the Five-Year Planning Cycle transforms decision-making from a reactive process to a proactive process. A clear vision and framework serve as the guideposts for making decisions.

Ongoing Community Dialogue

Planning shouldn’t be a “once in a blue moon” activity.
The Five-Year Planning Cycle allows for an ongoing community dialogue that is responsive to community needs – replacing rumors and misunderstandings with open dialogue, positive feedback and increased support for your planning efforts.

Cost Control

Traditional planning mechanisms eat away a lot of time and money on planning that seldom leads to implementation of good ideas. The Five-Year Planning Cycle is a strategy that reduces your costs and maximizes your planning effectiveness.

Visible Progress

Few things frustrate elected officials, staff and citizens more than the inertia that keeps plans from becoming reality. A central principle of the Five-Year Planning Cycle is to take action; identify next steps and communicate them to the community.

How Does the Five-Year Planning Cycle Work?

Instead of one large planning project every few years, with little energy or resources left for follow-through, the Five-Year Planning Cycle creates a system of planning designed to bring about sustained, incremental change over time.

There are six components to the cycle:
Planning Documents Ordinances Plan Implementation	Public Visioning Policies and Procedures Training and Education

Progress is made on each component, every year.

The Five-Year Planning Cycle

A Path to Progress for Small Towns & Rural Communities

With the Five-Year Planning Cycle, elected and appointed officials benefit from a long-term agenda, a clear vision of the community’s future, and a proven strategy to get there.