The EVP is a consortium of sixteen economic development, government and social service organizations working together to keep Benton County a vibrant place to live, work and play. As part of that charge, the EVP has a goal of creating a unified strategic plan to act as an umbrella for economic development services in Benton County, creating greater collaboration and eliminating redundancy wherever possible. Using the Vision 2020, as a starting place, the EVP is working to devise a plan to attain the attributes provided on the Economic Vitality page. The process outlined by the Strategic Planning Team, includes the following:

• Community and business input - accomplished by two distinct surveys o One engaging the community o One engaging businesses • Hiring a neutral third party facilitator (Barney & Worth) to lead effort o Document review – looking at all the economic related planning guides, studies and strategies that have been developed over time. The information will be used by a facilitator to identify themes for four focus area team to use o Focus Area Teams will meet twice before the Town Hall Meeting and twice afterward (see paragraph below for details) o A Town Hall strategic planning event to be held in May or June and to identify areas of special interest for focus groups. o Focus Areas Teams meet two more times to refine strategies and incorporate feedback from the Town Hall Meeting o A second Town Hall Meeting may be held, if deemed necessary, to present the refined strategies and receive more feedback from the community o At the end of the planning event, Barney & Worth will create a strategy document that includes 1, 5 and 20 year goals with work plans for the next 1-5 years. Work plans must show well identified objectives, local champions, work teams, deliverables, budgets and deadlines. The four Focus Area Teams will be charged with developing specific strategies in each of their areas (retention, recruitment, infrastructure and sustainability). Specific outcomes include goals, strategies, budget and a champion for each focus area. Focus Area Teams will meet twice before the Town Hall meeting to determine their strategies. Each Focus Area Team will then present their initial findings at the Town Hall meeting to solicit input and responses from the community. The Focus Area Teams will then have two additional meetings to incorporate the input from the Town Hall meetings and finalize the individual strategies. The strategies from each of the four Focus Area Teams will then be combined into a single document and presented to the community.