2005-2025 Strategic Plan Review

July 21 2026

Following the launch of the RSCL’s new Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded project “Transforming Institutions: Participatory Municipal Politics in the Age of Insecurity,” Lab Director Dr. Naomi Nichols was approached by representatives of community organizations who expressed an interest in the strategic planning documents of local institutions and community organizations. The expressed goal of such a review was to determine what progress (if any) has been made on key community issues and to determine whether any patterns or trends could be identified through a macroscopic review.

To conduct this review, a coordinating team of researchers, academics and community members was created to determine the scope of the review. In particular, the team included Nancy Fischer, Dawn Berry-Merriam, Dr. Greg Yerashotis, Brandon Eby, and Dhilan Maharaj. The project was co-led by Lab Director Dr. Naomi Nichols and Lab Manager Dr. Collin Chepeka. To Nancy Fischer and Dawn Berry-Merriam, we extend bountiful gratitude for the time they volunteered to this project, their near-encyclopedic knowledge of the history of community organizing in Peterborough City and County and their practical advice on how this research could be made useful to community organizations. We hope that others continue to recognize the incredible knowledge-base that long-standing community advocates like Fischer and Berry-Merriam draw from.

We found that across all areas, social and environmental issues are deeply interconnected. Despite appearing as distinct manifestations of precarity, housing instability, food and income insecurity, health challenges, climate change, and public safety concerns intersect with and reinforce one another. Our review also suggests that over time the calls to action in some strategic plans shifted from clear, measurable goals to more abstract and intangible goals. This shift coincided with an almost universal recognition that while institutional and community organizations are overwhelmed by demand, there is a lack of funding to meet community needs.

In all, a review of the last 20 years of strategic planning in Peterborough shows a community once optimistic about its ability (and capacity) to meet tangible goals–like ending chronic homelessness by 2025–through service coordination and sustainable land use policies. Now, the strategic plans reveal a community facing intensifying problems with less optimism and no expectation of government assistance.

In response, this report calls for a shift from fragmented and competitive strategic planning approaches toward greater coordination, solidarity, and structural advocacy.

Key recommendations include:

●       Building solidarity across organizations and communities to strengthen advocacy and reduce competition for limited resources;

●       Explicitly naming (with the goal of abolishing) systemic drivers of precarity, including structural, economic and policy constraints;

●       Making “strange bedfellows” by pairing seemingly dissimilar organizations to see if more efficient discussions and distributions of existing resources can be had; and

●       Setting tangible, measurable goals with explicit timeframes and ongoing processes of analysis and accountability.

Ultimately, meaningful change will require a collective shift toward coordinated action, shared infrastructure, and sustained advocacy aimed at addressing the root causes of precarity.‍ ‍