Our team of strategic thinkers helps organizations and communities craft stakeholder-informed plans, preparing staff and partners to implement clear next steps towards a shared vision.
CDR designs and implements approaches to engagement and facilitation that make sure planning and development processes are holistic, inclusive, and collaborative. For over 40 years, we have developed plans for a variety of clients—from small teams to whole agencies and municipalities.
We gather decision-makers together with other stakeholders to find durable solutions that address the challenges caused by growth and change. Our work in master, comprehensive, and area planning helps public sector clients navigate growth pressures and evolving community dynamics at regional, county, municipal, and neighborhood scale. Our process expertise and subject matter familiarity ensures that plans address issues related to community resilience, funding, infrastructure development, housing, transportation, and inclusivity.
Similarly, we support boards of directors and internal staff through organizational pressures by leading strategic and action planning efforts that clarify missions, visions, values, and next steps. Our approach to planning brings a future-oriented lens that promotes creativity and innovation to collaboratively build a path for manageable change.
At CDR, we deliver:
- Visioning exercises to set goals and objectives, define milestones, and identify success metrics;
- Themes and sentiments to communicate stakeholder priorities to shape a shared plan;
- Implementation-focused next steps to transform talk into action with practical, useful, and feasible information; and
- Buy-in among stakeholders to ensure long-term success.
Examples of our planning work:
- Thornton Comprehensive Plan CDR provided facilitation and community outreach services for Thornton’s Comprehensive Planning Process. Services included: coordination and facilitation of a visioning process with input from City Council and a broad cross-section of the community to identify high-level vision statements and provide a framework for the Comprehensive Plan Rewrite; and facilitation and coordination of community outreach and engagement services to ensure perspectives from a diverse cross-section of the community were included in the Comprehensive Plan Rewrite.
- RTD Rail Trail Master Planning Process, Boulder County Transportation Department
Spanning 9 miles from Boulder, CO, to Erie, CO, is a deactivated rail line owned by the Regional Transit District (RTD). RTD agreed to allow Boulder County’s Transportation Department to conduct a master planning process on the corridor to design a soft-surface, multi-use trail along the corridor. CDR is leading the public involvement and agency coordination of this planning process. CDR designed the stakeholder engagement plan, serves as the primary point of contact for stakeholders, is designing public involvement activities (ranging from stakeholder interviews to invite-only neighborhood workshops, to large public meetings), and facilitating internal, multi-agency decision-making meetings. In addition to robust in-person public involvement activities, CDR broadens engagement by including technical applications, such as an interactive website and text and email notifications.
- Colorado Springs Parks Department Strategic Planning
CDR worked closely with the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services (PRCS) Department at the City of Colorado Springs to identify the department’s goals and objectives, mission, vision, and values. CDR assisted the department in identifying a master task list to implement the strategic plan. In 2018, PRCS leadership began a process of reviewing the master task list as well as the strategic plan elements. Over the course of four facilitated meetings, CDR helped leadership identify next steps and how to continue to move the strategic plan forward.
Learn more:
Jeffrey Range
Planning Practice Lead
jrange@cdrassociates.org