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Overview:
In the early 1980's, Chattanooga, TN faced serious economic, social
and environmental problems that had been brewing for a long time. So
a handful of local officials, business executives and civic leaders
sought to take action outside the political process. They created a
nonprofit organization to "put the city on a successful track for the
turn of the century." The new organization's first initiative was Vision
2000, a community-wide visioning process where the entire community
was invited to say what they wanted for the future. Ten years later
the organization sponsored another community-wide visioning effort,
called ReVision 2000. The reason they didn't wait until 2000 was that
most of the 40 goals identified in the mid-1980s had already been accomplished,
generating almost $800 million in community reinvestment. The goals
they accomplished were not just cosmetic: they changed their form of
local government, their approach to schooling, and are eliminating substandard
housing.
How the "Store" got involved:
Carl had been a consultant to Chattanooga Venture, the organization
responsible for the visioning process, and Leadership Chattanooga, a
Chamber of Commerce based programs that prepares people for service
as community leaders. He was contracted to train the facilitators for
the process - many of them were alumni of the leadership program - and
to do that he substantially influenced the design of the process that
they would be leading.
Process Used:
In both Vision 2000 and ReVision 2000, a challenge was: when people
come out to say what they want for the City in the future, how can the
meeting be conducted so they can trust that they have been heard? And
what process can be used successfully by local, non-professional facilitators
to conduct the meeting? The decision was made to use Nominal Group Technique
in Round One and a variation of NGT in Round Two.
Product:
The immediate products were attractive, engaging materials that describe
what citizens say they want. The fuller product is a detailed strategic
plan for accomplishing the goals. The community has a "road map" of
where its citizens want it to go. Delegations from cities across the
nation (and the world!) travel to Chattanooga each year to see the "miracle"
for themselves. Governing Magazine recently asserted that "visioning
fever" is a highly contagious bug that has been sweeping civic America
in the late 1990s," in large part because it has worked so spectacularly
well in Chattanooga.
Case Study: Casper, WY
Case Study: Coconino National Forest
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