Practice area 01
Helping a community decide what matters, and setting a plan credible enough that the budget can actually carry it out.
What this covers
Strategic planning fails a city most often not because the priorities were wrong, but because the plan was never built with the budget in mind. Meridian works with council and administration to set focus areas, outcomes, and indicators that are specific enough to fund — not just aspirational language that sits in a binder.
That means naming the service-level choices a strategic plan implies, and being honest early about what each priority will cost to actually deliver.
What it produces
A strategic plan without a funding path is a wish list. Every focus area and outcome Meridian helps set is paired with the budgeting work needed to fund it — see how the two connect in Budgeting.
From the toolkit
Short walkthroughs of the templates and frameworks Meridian builds with clients — illustrated with a fictional Alberta city, City of Larkspur.