Creating Community within the Community
We have the power to change our communities and the way people exist in them
By creating extraordinary public spaces and telling stories about the people and events that make them special, we connect people to nature, history, culture, recreation, and each other - and this act of connecting makes life more meaningful.
I believe that we are meant to live in community and share our unique individual gifts, abilities, and resources to help each other.
PSC builds community by creating places for people to connect
com·mu·ni·ty
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a group of people living in the same place
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a feeling of fellowship with others
PSC creates the feeling of community by connecting people to the place and to each other - physically and emotionally - by intentionally implementing a system of branded destinations and experiences that reflect a city’s unique identity.
“Planning Solutions Corp is a tremendous asset to the City of Daytona Beach. The team provides a continuous strategic planning process to ensure the city is optimally positioned to take advantage of all funding opportunities, helping tackle many of our City’s greatest needs.
To bring true success to your community it takes a team who fosters relationships with granting agencies, maintains project progression, and shares your community’s story. PSC has been invaluable in providing quality of life improvements to the citizens and guests of Daytona Beach.”
Dru R. Driscoll, Deputy City Manager
City of Daytona Beach
city of daytona beach
PSC has worked continuously with the City of Daytona Beach for the last 10+ years as trusted advisor, funding strategist, and strategic visual storyteller creating lasting results.
Fostering Community through Holistic
City Branding & Strategic Visual Storytelling
Recent research by the Center for Active Design validates that public spaces can help to facilitate community connection, trust and involvement.
Branded destinations physically transform public space, while the space, in turn, socially transforms the culture, causing us to linger, and to feel more neighborly. When done well, holistic city branding fosters civic pride, creates civic responsibility, and turns residents into city ambassadors.
Planning Solutions Corp has developed a unique approach to city transformation that revolves around strategic storytelling and developing the city brand in both digital and physical space consisting of:
1.
Identifying the city's unique assets & treasures
PSC identified an opportunity to create a gateway to the City and was tasked with conceptualizing what it should be. PSC recommended a Character Study to identify the City's assets and treasures; and thus help define gateways/characteristics.
The City Manager directed PSC to lead the effort and obtain funding for it. The Character Study informed the design of gateways and the City's overall brand.
character study & Historic assets
2.
linking & leveraging public assets by implementing a system of branded destinations and experiences
strategic visual storytelling
Positive positioning occurs at the outset to conceptualize the essence of the story and create a compelling narrative that attracts funders, partners, and opportunity. Upon project completion, “success stories” are created by PSC for each of the grant-funded projects to elevate civic pride, report city commission success, and to celebrate as a community. They are publicly posted, shared with grantors, stakeholders, and project partners. The idea for success stories originated with PSC and we produce all content, layout and branding.
sustainability & environment
Enhancement of connections & corridors
Parks, historic landmarks & community centers
trails, sidewalks & pedestrian bridges
Example of Park Success Story –
facilities linked to create transformed public space
Dickerson Center, Campbell Aquatic Center, and Dr. James Huger Sr. Park were three adjacent facilities that had never been connected. PSC provided the vision to connect the three spaces through safe pedestrian ways and better traffic flow, rearrangement of on-site uses based on the user experience, and unified branding. This resulted in a safe space and showcase destination for the community and resulted in several grant awards to help fund the $2.8 million project.
3.
interweaving and connecting the stories and assets into a UNIQUE CITY BRAND / IDENTITY
Inspiring the City to Reimagine a famous Brand
The City of Daytona Beach needed to align its brand promise. For nearly 100 years, it had used “World’s Most Famous Beach”, but PSC observed that it was no longer accurate. The City had earned that moniker when five world land speed records were set racing on its hard-packed sand and a 1935 universal news reel proclaimed Daytona Beach the “Talk of the World”.
Daytona Beach became famous – not because of the beach – but rather because of the unique way it was used. The City's fame came from the renegades - the forward thinkers - that made their mark in Daytona Beach. People who thought differently, drove differently, acted differently. As the waves broke on the sand, they broke world speed records, broke racial barriers and became the talk of the world. PSC aligned the City's brand promise by rebranding the city around fame and famous people - down playing the beach as the key asset.
Aligned Brand Promise:
The City IS NOT the World’s Most Famous Beach. It isn’t even on the top 15 beaches in Florida list.
The City IS World Famous Daytona Beach. The City was – and still is – world-renowned.
Planning Solutions Corp reimagined the City’s brand in 2019, and presented a detailed brand strategy and implementation plan in 2021. Citywide implementation began in 2019 and is on-going.
4.
Using Strategic Storytelling to Increase Grant Funding and Communitywide Impact
funding
Planning Solutions Corp has successfully provided funding strategy, grant writing, grantor relations, and grant administration services to the City for more than 10 years, obtaining over $500,000 / month of grant funding for the City every single month of the contract for 103 successive months.
This linking and leveraging of the City’s assets creates lasting widespread impact with 60 capital projects implemented at 37 destinations to date. PSC has administered 169 grants from 20 grantors, often managing multiple funding sources simultaneously on the same project.
The infographic categories align with the success story categories.
Strategic Storytelling made Grant Funding possible
Vision, strategy, and implementation are interwoven throughout the services provided to the City. PSC was asked to find funding for a bridge replacement. Going to the most likely grantor, we were advised it would not be funded due to the destination’s location off the main waterway. While evaluating the bridge project, it became apparent that there were 3 streetscapes, a roundabout, a separate bridge rehabilitation, underground utility conversion and a whole host of other public improvements across two communities in the vicinity that were not being coordinated.
PSC recommended the two cities develop a plan for the area. They agreed but didn’t have the funding and asked PSC to both obtain the funding for the plan and get it done. A grant was obtained from the Department of Economic Opportunity and “Marina Village” was created.
The plan tied all the projects together and developed a concept for redevelopment and created a destination brand. Once the plan was adopted by both cities, PSC went to the original grantor with the Marina Village Plan to ask for the bridge funding and was this time awarded the funds.
positioning & storytelling changes perspective
Neither the location of the project, nor its vicinity to the main waterway had changed. What had changed was the grantor’s updated vision, based on the new lens PSC had them look through. They saw the project differently, based on how it was presented and they now were able to embrace the vision and see how it aligned with their mission.
