Sustainable Cleveland 2019

(Original Publication January 2010)

Have you heard about it? In August 2009 Mayor Jackson hosted the first Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit: Building an Economic Engine to Empower a Green City on a Blue Lake which was an Appreciative Inquiry summit to create a 10-year strategic plan for the City and region. Over 700 people from all walks of life converged in Public Auditorium to co-develop the plan. The cool thing about this is that instead of writing a strategic plan, participants came up with 22 projects that collectively would be the plan and then developed prototypes – right there! – and began the work.

My group, The Public Compact working group, was charged with writing a vision and pledge that individuals could sign that would help stimulate engagement with economic and community development throughout the region. (There’s also an Engage 1.6M group that is charged with reaching out to everyone. We’re helping to provide content for that outreach.) Through a consensus process, we wrote The Cleveland Commitment to articulate a vision, set of common values and action steps. Our intention is to develop a means by which individuals can sign the Pledge and let everyone know what they’re doing to help. As this data is collected, a composite picture or scorecard can be broadcast so that we all know the good news and progress we are making. 

Cleveland is the first city in the nation to use this type of engagement process for this type of regional strategic plan. Other communities’ 10-year plans are targeted for 2020. We are still in the formative stages, yet real work is being done. A Report Out session of 20 of the 22 groups (http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/national_business_leaders_back.html) showed progress in furthering Local Food, Advanced Energy & Research & Commercialization and Social Entrepreneurship in the Urban Core.   There will be another Summit in September 2010 to demonstrate the progress NE Ohio is making toward a sustainable region.   I’m looking forward to sharing with you more about the Summit progress as well as the process we in the newly named Cleveland Commitment Group are using.

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