Community Development Essentials - A Process Before a Plan

Community Development Essentials - A Process Before a Plan

This session will equip participants with sustainable, accessible, research-based practices and shared insights and dialogue alongside fellow participants. The goal is to help Pennsylvania’s planners, municipal staff, and other session participants foster vibrant, self-reliant communities in times of turbulence and change. The session is framed in an engaging, dialogue-centered format that supports the development of innovative, practice-based approaches to community development, with a focus on the resilience of both practitioners and the communities they serve. Presenters will do this by teaching Community Development Essentials within the context of today’s challenges.

Participants will explore the components of this Community Development Essentials curriculum, developed by Land-Grant Cooperative Extension practitioners. Focused on practitioner-centered collaboration and community-centric, future-focused dialogue, the presenters will focus on community development defined, community engagement as community development, practical tools for economic and community development, and case studies in asset-based community development. How these essentials of community development can be utilized by municipal staff and their agencies, and how they can lead to the adoption and better implementation of municipal plans, will be explored.

Developed with the support of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) and the Southern Rural Development Center, and in collaboration with over 15 Land-Grant Higher Education Extension practitioners, the Community Development Essentials (CD 101) curriculum utilizes applied skills and engaged dialogue to ensure participants leave with resources for use in their communities.

During this session, presenters will also ask three guiding questions of the participants:

1) What ideas or practices are driving meaningful change in your local work?

2) How are you fostering communities that are resilient in the face of change?

3) How is community development a tool for engaged accountability and measured change in your work?

Speakers

- Michael Dougherty, Professor and Extension Specialist, West Virginia University

- Hunter Goodman, Assistant Professor for Community, Workforce, and Economic Development, University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service

Group viewing brought to you by Lancaster County Planning.

Lancaster County Planning strives to provide educational opportunities for our planning partners – professional planners, municipalities, consultants, designers, engineers, local planning commissions, and interested citizens. In 2026, we will continue to provide an opportunity for our partners to join us at our office to view a mix of live and recorded webinars we have purchased or registered for from various sources on a variety of planning topics. Many of these programs will provide AICP CM and ASLA continuing education credits. Due to site license restrictions, we are not able to share our webinar access information with interested parties. For independent access, please contact the webinar provider directly.

For questions related to this event, please contact 717-299-8333 or email [email protected].

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