It's not the plan, it's the planning process.
Crafting a strategic plan requires more than compiling hopes and dreams. It's about fostering fresh and inclusive thinking, bold creativity informed by pragmatic experience, and intentional dialogue that builds trust and inspires stakeholders to champion the cause. Don't let your precious opportunity to craft a strategic plan fall to these common disappointments:
✘ Useless results
✘ Lack of agreement from the group
✘ Inadequate stakeholder involvement
✘ Obsolescence due to leadership changes
✘ Plan shelved and forgotten
As your strategic planning partner, our top priority is to deliver a process that empowers, informs, invigorates, excites, and ultimately leads to meaningful action. Your strategic plan should be more than a long-term wish list. Let us help you create a dynamic instrument that unites people to pursue your organization's greatest aspirations for the community.
We gather agreement around shared priorities, which serve as a catalyst for advancement.
Imperative Plans
We cultivate the strategic capacity of organizations to anticipate and adapt to change and disruption, endowing them with agility to navigate future challenges.
Retreats & Summits
We create safe and satisfying avenues for leadership groups to assess their situations, explore creative possibilities, and pivot towards productive plans of action.
Community Assessments
We assist civic and nonprofit organizations in seeking, recognizing and considering the varied needs, expectations, and aspirations of people in their communities.
Stakeholder Engagement
We specialize in meaningfully communicating with and involving the breadth a community or the span of an organization's stakeholders, including clients, members, donors, team members and more.
Project Advancement
We revitalize planning efforts that have become disorganized, unfocused, or uncooperative. Engage us to restore clear communication, productivity, and trust in your process.
Leadership Coaching
We empower municipal, civic, and nonprofit leaders to be mindful and purposeful in strategy, communication, teamwork, and collaboration.
Matt Lehrman and John Little energize collaborative problem-solving, even around complex and sensitive issues.
Trusted by:
Town & City Councils
Boards of Directors
School Boards
Commissions
City & Town Managers
Municipal Clerks
CEO's & Executive Directors
Colleges & Universities
Foundations
Also available:
Interactive Keynotes & Workshops
on Civility & Community Engagement
A few examples of our work.
Collaborative Municipal Placemaking
City of Norfolk, Virginia
Cultural Tourism
Service:
Guided a multi-month process of creative exploration and pragmatic dialogue among the city's prominent arts institutions, cultural destinations, and tourism industry to conceive mutually-beneficial audience development strategies. The primary goal of this initiative was to drive sales-tax revenue growth by cultural tourism.
Agility in the midst of disruption.
Experience Scottsdale, Arizona
Imperative Planning
Service:
Designed and facilitated a series of brainstorming sessions for the board of directors of Scottsdale's destination management organization. The main objective was to proactively find opportunities to pivot in order to sustain the city's position as a premier luxury tourism destination amidst the challenging (and socially distant) early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gathering input for a city’s cultural plan
Arts Council of Fort Worth, Texas
Public Engagement in Cultural Planning
Service:
Crafted and conducted eight public engagement sessions that effectively captured meaningful participation from throughout the community. Ensured that the feedback received was meaningfully captured and conveyed to inform the strategic planning of the city's cultural future.
What our clients are saying
"Matt's strategic planning consultation sparked a powerful united vision for Norfolk’s consortium of arts & cultural organizations.
Towards the residents of our region and from the perspective of cultural tourists, he showed us how to combine the City of Norfolk’s arts, sciences, animals, history and cultural attractions into a high performance super species!"
Greg Bockheim, CEO, Virginia Zoo
“Matt was extremely helpful in assisting both the Scottsdale Public Library and the Scottsdale Parks & Recreation Department with comprehensive strategic planning projects.
Matt specifically excelled in facilitating large community group and organizational leadership input sessions both virtually and in-person.
He especially impressed with his ability to engage participants in productive dialogue that resulted in valuable feedback that we used to develop our strategic plans."
Kira Peters, Community Services Administrator, City of Scottsdale
“Matt's strategic planning leadership and expertise were absolutely critical in the successful evolution of Tempe Tourism from a Destination Marketing Organization to a Destination Management Organization. He approached the process with a level of thoughtfulness, insight, and collaboration that exceeded our expectations.
Matt's interactive approach was invaluable in connecting our board of directors to industry experts, facilitating lively and productive discussions, and ultimately helping us to articulate a clear and compelling written plan.
Thanks to Matt's guidance, our organization is now better positioned than ever to achieve our goals and serve our community."
Michael Martin, President & CEO, Tempe Tourism
The future is unknowable, but it's incredibly malleable.
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Skidmore College photos by Erin Covey
Fort Worth photos by the Fort Worth Portrait Project
Connect 351 photos by Krista Guenin/Krista Photography