CliffsNotes: An Overview of GU’s Five-Year Plan

Germantown United CDC released the organization’s five-year strategic plan in September 2018. This new plan will help prioritize and advance our work in Germantown now through the year 2023.

We encourage all our partners, neighborhood advocates, and community stakeholders to give the full plan a looksee. We also know 36 pages is a lot to take in 🙂 So if you’re looking for a quick overview of what’s changed, read on!

Biggest Update: Expanding Our Mission

GU has expanded its focus on commercial corridor revitalization and role representing businesses to representing the entire Germantown community. We are increasing our investment in community building, outreach and engagement. The issues prompting this shift are documented in the full plan. The organization’s mission statement now reads:

Recommitment to Core Values

Core values are the fundamental beliefs of an organization, and help us to determine if we are on the right path and fulfilling our mission by creating an unwavering guide.

GU subscribes to the following core values:

• Integrity in the performance of service to our community
• Transparency in communicating with our clients, customers, and constituents
• Accountability in our stewardship of resources entrusted to GU by funders and stakeholders

New Activities to Look Out For

A key part of the planning process was identifying opportunities to enhance programming and activities, service delivery, outcomes, and impact. Here are a few things to look out for from Germantown United CDC in the coming years:

More Convening & Civic Engagement

• Expanded reach into underserved areas of Germantown
• Facilitation of more community and public service meetings, allowing community members to share concerns, opinions, and ideas while giving GU a platform to be fully transparent about program results, strategies, issues, opportunities, and any other information that may be relevant to the people we serve

Stronger Leadership & Advocacy

GU will exercise more leadership in:

• Land use, planning, and zoning
• Redeveloping vacant properties
• Supporting and attracting investors committed to equitable development
• Strengthening working relationships with state and city agencies

Improvements You Can See

• Cohesive branding of Germantown’s commercial corridors, and promotion of the community more broadly
• Boost Germantown’s commercial corridors with a renewed focus on:
  • Improving city services within Germantown, with special attention to issues that impact quality-of-life, including lighting, sanitation, signage, and human services
  • Physical improvements and development (including use of façade design guidelines to encourage renovations of commercial and key historic buildings, and attacking blight block-by-block)
  • Small business development and attraction
  • Economic development (supporting business growth, workforce development, entrepreneurs)
• Greater investment in neighborhood stabilization efforts and community wealth-building (promotion and facilitation of affordable housing and homeownership in Germantown, housing counseling services for residents, supporting entrepreneurs and neighborhood-oriented businesses)

Read the plan

• Download a PDF file of the organizational strategic plan.
• Read on Issuu.
• Pickup a print copy at GU’s storefront office, located at 5320 Germantown Avenue, at the corner of W Penn St.
• Attend GU’s new Town Hall series to learn more. The first event is scheduled for Thursday, October 25 from 6:30PM – 8PM. The main thing we’ll be discussing is the new strategic plan, and we’ll have print copies on hand. Location TBD.