About Community-Driven Planning

What is Community-Driven Planning?

Community-driven planning is about self-determination for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian & Pacific Islander communities. More capacity in our communities to develop our own solutions and plans is what’s needed to replace the exclusionary practices of top-down planning.

The engine of community-driven planning includes three interconnected practices:

Visioning

Community vision is about defining for ourselves what it is we want to build together as a community, as opposed to accepting the vision that is set for us by profit motives. Facilitative leaders create space for communities to expand our understanding of what’s possible, and orient ourselves towards what’s needed for the next seven generations.

Solutions Development

Community-driven solutions development starts with communities coming together to assess community threats and assets. Based on this analysis, facilitative leaders support groups to develop, or identify, solutions that match their community’s own unique experiences and get at the root causes of the crises we face.

Power-Building

No community-derived solutions or plans can move into action without community power. It takes political, economic, and cultural power to assert community priorities and ensure they are resourced and implemented. Many of the same power-building strategies and tactics that are used to stop harmful practices can be drawn on to advance transformative solutions.