Long-range improvement plans have developed a reputation for remaining just that – plans. But Cincinnati’s newest strategy, Agenda 360, is a ‘regional action plan’ true to every word in its title; its engaging plan to transform our area is focused on regionalism and taking action.
By 2009, leaders from all facets of community life in Southwest Ohio, including Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren counties, will have spent 18 months working together to determine how best to implement Agenda 360’s rallying cry: to transform Cincinnati into a leading metropolitan region for talent, jobs and economic opportunity by the year 2020.
Unlike previous planning strategies, Agenda 360 has designed its plans with distinct ‘bias for action’ and feasible, short term steps with identifiable metrics. This way, the community can actually see the results and know what progress has been made. These action plans have emerged from the ground up, focusing on the assets and resources the Cincinnati area already has to offer.
Furthermore, the action plans Agenda 360 has developed are in keeping with its focus on inclusion – emphasizing the importance of making changes that truly help ‘all who call our region home.’ They are organizing an open ‘Town Hall’ for late September or early October, and an Inclusion Support Team has been developed to guarantee that actions taken by the five, issue-focused Action Teams incorporate input from every segment of the community.
The Livable Communities Action Team, for example, has a long-term goal to make Cincinnati “the ‘greenest’ and most environmentally sustainable region in the country.” While this is a bold plan, in the short-term they’ll be working to plant 5,000 new trees by the end of 2009 to create a visual “emerald necklace” – a result we’ll all be able to see.
Under the Educational Excellence Team, there are plans to eventually offer a $5,000 annual scholarship for local students to attend a 2 or 4 year institution in our region. The Team’s aim is to remove the financial barrier to college and increase success of students in the urban core.
Many of Agenda 360’s plans involve working with groups that are already serving the Cincinnati area. One goal is to merge groups with a similar purpose, such as several “Feed the Homeless” organizations, in order to improve efficiency and increase funding for the cause as a whole.
“We’re not trying to re-invent the wheel,” explained Ellen van der Horst, president of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber and one of three co-chairs comprising Agenda 360’s Leadership Team. Van der Horst stresses the importance of supplementing existing regional strengths by looking outside for inspiration. She continues, “we will fare better [than previous plans] because we’re doing something that’s never before been done in Cincinnati – modeling after Northern Kentucky.”
Northern Kentucky’s 10-year strategic plan, Vision 2015, has already begun to demonstrate the effectiveness of a plan dedicated to action. The most recent paperless ‘Report to the Community’ highlighted many of their successes in the past year, including the development of NKYHelps.org, wireless access at the CVG airport, hosting the Champions for Education Summit in November, co-naming 12th Street in Covington to Martin Luther King Boulevard to demonstrate inclusion, and the creation of over a thousand new jobs in the area. In an effort to expand this progress into Ohio, Agenda 360 has chosen to base its structure on that of Vision 2015.
Vision 2015 is organized around six strategic initiatives: economic competitiveness, educational excellence, effective governance, urban renaissance, livable communities, and regional stewardship. Agenda 360 has adopted these first five as their ‘Action Teams,’ keeping the same names in order to show that the structure and goals of the groups align.
Kevin Ghassomian, another of Agenda 360’s co-chairs, is very positive about the groups’ future relationship. “We have established genuine friendships with the leaders of Vision 2015. A common purpose will undoubtedly yield increasing levels of collaboration in the future,” Ghassomian says. “We recognize that our long-term success will be determined by our ability to keep working together for the greater good.”
This is more than a nod towards regionalism. Since Agenda 360 and Vision 2015 are intentionally organized similarly, working together will make sense. Their cooperation should be seamless, and there are hopes to eventually merge them into one regional group working to improve the entire tri-state area.
At the Regional Stewardship Council Meeting in June, Mike Phillips, former editor of The Post, encouraged both groups to maintain this commitment to regionalism: “The only people who see the river as a barrier are governments and newspapers.”
The issues Agenda 360 and Vision 2015 are addressing certainly transcend these barriers. They’re both working to improve inclusion, sustainability, workforce development, government cooperation, and regional transportation, and they’re recognizing that economically and socially, what is good for one city or county is good for all.
In keeping with this philosophy, Agenda 360 is breaking down barriers in leadership. Impressed by Vision 2015’s intergenerational leadership, they’re following the lead with a three-generational Leadership Team and a general commitment to ensuring that all teams are comprised of individuals with both experience and fresh ideas, reaching as many of the communities’ perspectives as possible.
Soapbox recently spoke with Robert Maly, Vice-President of Development for The Model Group and a young-professional serving as co-chair for Agenda 360’s Effective Governance Team, about this leadership.
“Vision 2015 nailed it when they filled their leadership posts with intergenerational volunteers, says Maly, who believes Cincinnati is ahead of the nation in this regard. They – and ultimately Agenda 360 leaders – understood that in order to compete for the best and brightest, a young-professional initiative here and there doesn’t even come close to cutting it. This is the key difference between Vision 2015/Agenda 360 and past visioning efforts.”
There seem to be many key differences between Agenda 360 and previous Cincinnati plans. When the final report is released in December, we can expect to see exactly what they have laid out for Cincinnati’s future. With intergenerational leadership, feasible plans, and an eye for regionalism, Agenda 360 is proving itself to be much more than an abstract long-range improvement plan.
Robert Maly agrees, “We chose not to do as we’ve always done, and as a result, we’re not getting what we’ve always gotten.”
Laura Z. Weldon is currently an undergraduate English Literature major at Columbia University in New York. She is originally from Covington, Kentucky.
Photography by Scott Beseler
Ellen van der Horst, president of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber
3rd Street view
Kevin Ghassomian
Southeast downtown view