Heart & Soul Community Planning Implementation Guides

Resource Description

These comprehensive Heart & Soul Implementation Guides outline the steps necessary to implement numerous community goals and provide a resource for towns to actively plan their futures. The Orton Family Foundation created these Guides to accompany the Heart & Soul Community Planning Handbook, helping communities to achieve an inclusive, enduring, long-term plan following the Foundation’s Heart & Soul principles of values-based, citizen-driven community planning. Each H&S Implementation Guide takes on a different community issue.

First, the H&S Implementation Guides identify the issue, explaining why the topic is important to consider and what exactly it means for a community. Each topic is broken down into a subset of smaller goals contributing to the overarching issue facing the community. Individual action steps are outlined for each goal, providing communities with concrete actions and methods. Tools such as surveys, mapping activities, resource inventories, community forums, land re-zoning, awareness campaigns, and incentives give towns a step-by-step description of the actions necessary to achieve their long-term community goals. 

The Orton Family Foundation has published the first five in a series of ten Implementation Guides. The initial guides focus on:

1. Enhancing Local Character: Celebrating a town’s unique attributes can inspire both community pride and economic sustainability. 
2. Encouraging Inclusive, Local Government: The most effective local governments collaborate with citizens and stakeholders to transparently plan the future of their community.
3. Promoting Housing Opportunities: Providing citizens with varying affordable housing options can increase diversity, positive relationships, and community growth. 
4. Supporting Local Businesses and Jobs: Sustainable and successful local businesses are vital for long-term economic prosperity. 
5. Fostering a Sense of Community: Towns with engaged citizenry enjoy a higher quality of life with increased volunteering, neighborly relationships, and social capital.