Revitalization Strategy Workshop (5 days)

This 5-day workshop is primarily to strategize the renewal of communities, regions, waterfronts, closed military bases (BRAC, in the US), etc.   It can also be used to restore large heritage sites, wildlife reserves, watersheds, estuaries, etc., especially if they are threatened by economically-challenged nearby communities or rural populations.  It should be preceded by our Revitalization Vision Workshop.

In just one week--and in your location of choice--up to 24 of your leaders will become familiar with Integrated Revitalization concepts, tools, and techniques.  Together, you will produce a custom Launch Guide to help ensure that your renewal process is fast, efficient, self-sustaining, and effective. Your Launch Guide can guide long-term policymaking and planning, as well as day-to-day decision-making on projects and proposals.  It's meant to be an evolutionary document that encourages immediate action from local leaders, who know it will be modified over time as they learn from the integrated revitalization process.  

The Strategy Workshop is valuable and appropriate no matter what your current condition:

• You're in great shape, but wish to become even healthier, wealthier, and more beautiful;

• You're in poor shape, and wish to emerge from this condition as quickly as possible;

• You've already begun your socioeconomic renewal, and wish to leverage a successful beginning into a long-term strategy for integrated revitalization.

Use the Strategy Workshop any way you wish:  You are only contracting the seminar from us...everything else is determined by you: The number of attendees (and who they are); whether you will charge a registration fee (and how much); where to hold it; whether you recruit sponsors; the focus of the event (a community, a region, an organization, a program, etc.), and so on.

Number of attendees: While the number of participants is up to you (see above), 24 participants is often a practical maximum for an intense working group such as this.  Please be sure all of them can commit to the entire 5-day process.  Other local experts on specific assets and challenges within the community/region can be brought into the portions of the session that deal with that subject, but the core group should be those public and private leaders need to be familiar with every aspect, thus their commitment for the entire 5 days.  They will be responsible for communicating the resulting vision to the citizenry and business community, and for carrying-through with turning the vision into a strategy and plan, using the Launch Guide as a touchstone.

• Fast-track version: If there is absolutely no possibility of getting a dozen or so of your local leaders to commit for 5 days, we can do a fast-track version of the Strategy Workshop in just 3 days. The tuition remains the same, however, because facilitating the group through the entire process in a shorter period is much harder work for the faculty (and because we don't wish to encourage the fast-track version, except when the alternative is no Strategy Workshop at all.)

• Note: Our 1-day Revitalization Vision Workshop is a perfect vehicle for orienting and recruiting appropriate attendees for your 5-day Strategy Workshop (and for attracting funds to cover the tuition).

Cost:  $36,000 (plus travel expenses for the faculty) for up to 24 participants.  In some cases, Guest Experts on your faculty will pay their own travel expenses.  This is on a case-by-case basis, and you have the final say over which experts are recruited (see below for more on Guest Experts.) The tuition covers the staff instructor's time, the organizational costs of the program, and helps support the institute's overhead and ongoing research.  It's a wise investment, as the Strategy Workshop can work as a "seed" investment for further funding, helping an area position itself to tap the fast-growing, broad spectrum of public and private funding now available worldwide for economic revitalization, and for the restoration of built, natural, and social assets.

• Communities/regions enrolled by an organization within one of our 3 networks receive a 10% tuition discount.

• If your project is selected as one of our 3 Pilot Projects, you will receive a 20% tuition discount.

  • Sorry: The Network Member tuition discount and the Pilot Program tuition discounts cannot be combined. 

• Who pays the tuition? It could be a likely source, such as the community/region itself, a development bank, a concerned citizen/employer, or a foundation. But, it could also be paid by a non-profit organization, or even a for-profit company. 

  • Why would a public agency or non-profit pay for a community's Strategy Workshop? They might simply do it as part of their mission to boost the economy or quality of life.  But, if they are receiving public funds or private grants for some kind of regional project, such as a watershed restoration initiative, or a statewide rural revitalization program. In that case, their program is likely to be far more effective if all the communities within their project scope understood the 12 sectors of restorable assets and the concept of integrated revitalization.  If each community also has it's own custom Launch Guide using the same terminology, taxonomy, and strategic approach, regional integration will be even easier.

  • For-profit companies: Be a Strategy Workshop Sponsor!  If your design, planning, development, or other professional service company wishes to contribute to the revitalization of a community or region, you can sponsor a Revitalization Strategy Workshop for them.  You do not need to be a member of our Affiliate Network to sponsor a Strategy Workshop (but you do need to be an Affiliate if you wish to contribute Guest Experts to the Strategy Workshop faculty from your staff.)  There are two levels of sponsorship:

    • Program Sponsor: Program Sponsors underwrite the entire cost of the Strategy Workshop; both the tuition and the travel costs of the staff faculty and any Guest Experts brought in from non-profit and academic institutions. [Note: You would not pay the travel expenses for any Guest Experts from other for-profit firms.]

    • Faculty Sponsor: Faculty Sponsors underwrite the travel costs of the staff faculty and any Guest Experts brought in from non-profit and academic institutions. That way, communities on tight budgets know exactly what their costs will be up front: Just the tuition. [Note: You would not pay the travel expenses for any Guest Experts from other for-profit firms.]

     

Faculty: The Strategy Workshop faculty comprises one instructor from Revitalization Institute's staff, plus up to five Guest Experts (if desired) from organizations in Revitalization Institute's 3 Networks. We will recruit those Guest Experts for you, based on your needs.  For instance: If your area has significant brownfields, historic buildings, watershed, farmland, and infrastructure challenges, your five Guest Experts will most likely be chosen according to those issues.   

Format & Curriculum:  The Strategy Workshop faculty will come to your area for 5 days to work with your local government, non-profit, citizen, and/or business leaders in an intensive workshop setting (location of your choosing):

• Day One - Orientation & Prioritization:

  • 09:00 - 11:00 (1-hour lecture + 1-hour discussion). This first lecture and group discussion familiarizes them with the principles of restorative economics, and with the 12 sectors of restorable assets.

  • 11:00 - 12:00: (1-hour facilitated discussion).  This session arranges the twelve sectors of restorative development in rough order of their importance to revitalization.  The sectors that are critical enablers will be dealt with earlier in the week, as they often lay the groundwork for the restoration of the less-critical sectors.

  • 13:00 - 15:00: (90-minute lecture + 30-minute discussion) After lunch, the second lecture and group discussion familiarizes attendees with the advantages of integrated strategies in general, and with the concepts of Integrated Revitalization in particular.

  • 15:00 - 16:00: (1-hour facilitated discussion) This session identifies the area's most urgent problems/crises, which are used as touchstones throughout the week.   We also discuss how restorative development can contribute to alleviating those problems, which initiates the week-long process of forming a shared vision of economic growth for your area that's based on the restoration of your built, natural, and social assets.

• Day Two: Cataloguing and Analysis of Restorable Assets

  • 09:00 - 12:00: (3-hour facilitated discussion).  The restorative development sector that the group ranked as most critical to the community or region's revitalization is analyzed.  A prioritized list of restorable assets within this sector is created, along with a list of assets already-restored, about to be restored, or not worth restoring (there's a higher and better use for the property.)

  • 13:00 - 16:00: (3-hour facilitated discussion).  The restorative development sector that the group ranked as second-most critical to the community or region's revitalization is analyzed.  A prioritized list of restorable assets within this sector is created, along with a list of assets already-restored, about to be restored, or not worth restoring (there's a higher and better use for the property.)

• Day Three: Cataloguing and Analysis of Restorable Assets

  • A repeat of the Day Two format, with the 3rd and 4th-ranked sectors of restorable assets.

  • Note regarding Days 2, 3, & 4: The primary analytical tool for the 12 restorative sectors is our Asset Integration Guide, which identifies 3 key restorative factors for each sector. Each of these 24 factors is a potential point of integration among the 12 sectors.

• Day Four: Cataloguing and Analysis of Restorable Assets

  • A repeat of the Day Two format, with the 5th and 6th-ranked sectors of restorable assets.  [Note: Most areas only have significant assets in six of the eight built & natural sectors.  If your area has assets in seven or all eight of the built & natural sectors, they will be discussed today.  Since these are the sectors ranked least-critical, they take less time to analyze, so more sectors can be done in one day.]

  • The four sectors of social assets will also be briefly discussed, but these involve so many complex aspects that a separate series of events should probably be planned if the region or community wishes to address them properly. 

• Day Five: Assembling the Revitalization Launch Guide

  • The last day is spent assembling the materials and insight of the previous four days into a custom Launch Guide that will help them 1) clearly grasp the local impediments to greater health and wealth; 2) expand the local revitalization dialogue to include all stakeholders; 3) identify the projects that will produce the most benefits in the shortest time (to quickly build momentum); 4) identify follow-up projects that will help initiate a self-sustaining revitalization cycle, and 5) create a comprehensive, long-term revitalization strategy.

  • The Launch Guide is designed to be a decision-making tool for future planning, policy-making, and strategizing.

Types of programs and projects on which you could focus a Revitalization Strategy Workshop:

• Military base redevelopment (BRAC);

• Waterfront redevelopment;

• Community or neighborhood revitalization;

• Historic district renewal;

• Watershed restoration;

• River restoration or urban stream daylighting/restoration;

• Rural renewal;

• Fishery or estuary restoration;

• Brownfields remediation and redevelopment;

• Infrastructure renewal;

• Urban regeneration;

• Regional revitalization;

• National economic renewal.

Want to read more about what it takes to put an area on the path to integrated revitalization?  Click here.

To read more about Integrated Revitalization, click here.

To bring the Revitalization Strategy Workshop to your area, please email us or call us at 703-348-7878 (Virginia, USA).