South Mountain Partnership Plans Bigger, Better Future Through A Strategic Planning Process

The South Mountain Partnership Wednesday announced the completion of a strategic action plan that it will use from 2018 to 2021 to advance its efforts and help grow the partnership.

From fall 2017 through early summer 2018, fifteen partnering organizations from Adams, Cumberland, Franklin, and York counties-- each serving as members of SMP’s Leadership Committee-- worked with a strategic planning consultant hired with funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust’s and Funders Network’s Regional Capacity Building.

Each of these member organizations have pledged to help implement the new plan.

To create the Strategic Plan, the group assessed the past organizational model and programs. The assessment found that deepened partner engagement, clarified goals and structure, and targeted brand awareness will help the SMP, as well as partnering organizations, to enact bigger, better conservation goals and projects.  

“One element of the Strategic Plan that is most energizing for our group is the creation of working and advisory committees,” said Katie Hess, Director of the SMP. “We learned that, while we are getting partners in the room together to learn and have a good time, we had no mechanism in place to help empower them to take action and authority over projects collaboratively or to delegate work to willing partners.

“The assessment showed that many partners desire to be more engaged in their areas of their expertise and to take on more responsibility within the SMP. All that was missing was a mechanism for us to activate these partners,” explained Hess.  “This is addressed in our new Strategic Plan through the creation of working and advisory committees formed around different sectors, topics, and priorities.”

This structure will create a more collaborative framework that existing and new partner organizations can ‘plug into’ to better promote and preserve the Landscape Resources of the South Mountain landscape region.

The South Mountain Partnership would like to thank the following partners who were heavily involved in the strategic planning process:

-- Adams County Planning Department

-- Appalachian Trail Conservancy

-- Capital Resource Conservation & Development

-- Center for Land Use & Sustainability, Shippensburg University

-- Cumberland Area Economic Development Corporation/Visitors Bureau

-- Cumberland County Planning Department

-- Franklin County Planning Department

-- Franklin County Visitors Bureau

-- Land Conservancy of Adams County

-- Natural Resources Conservation Service-PA, USDA

-- Pennsylvania Audubon

-- Department of Conservation & Natural Resources

-- State Historical Preservation Office, PA Historical & Museum Commission

-- Partnership for Better Health

-- York County Planning Commission

The South Mountain Partnership is a great way for people to get more involved with promoting and preserving the Agricultural, Cultural/Historic, Natural, and Recreational resources that make the region so unique and the quality of life so high.

To stay informed on the strategic planning process as it moves forward, be sure to visit the South Mountain Partnership website on a regular basis.

Visit DCNR’s South Mountain Conservation Landscape webpage for more information on this initiative and DCNR’s Conservation Landscapes webpage for information on similar initiatives in other areas of the state.