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Staff presents draft strategic plan goals for Volusia County ECHO program
Summary
Volusia County ECHO staff and a consultant presented a five‑goal strategic plan framework — marketing and engagement; application and grant terms; direct county expenditures; program infrastructure; and advisory committee improvements — and asked the advisory committee for feedback before forwarding the plan to county council.
Volusia County ECHO staff presented a summary of a consultant’s draft strategic plan that recommends five goals and roughly 30 strategies to guide program operations, outreach and grant processes.
Daniel (ECHO staff) told the advisory committee the consultant is finalizing the full plan and that the packet presented committee members with the five goals, suggested strategies and proposed metrics. “We don’t have the final draft of that. They’re still working on that with the data and the rationale,” Daniel said during the presentation.
What the plan covers: staff summarized five goals—(1) marketing and engagement, (2) application and grant terms, (3) direct county expenditures (DCE) transparency and accountability, (4) program infrastructure and modernized operations, and (5) advisory committee onboarding and governance. The packet included objectives, proposed timelines and sample performance metrics for each goal.
Examples discussed in committee
- Marketing and engagement: the consultant recommended interactive kiosks in high‑traffic county locations (the Ocean Center and the airport were cited as examples), expanded countywide surveys and a quarterly project spotlight. Committee members asked for clarity on survey controls and suggested providing a marketing template or guidance to grant applicants to help small organizations produce stronger outreach plans.
- Application and grant terms: the draft recommends streamlining application requirements, replacing generalized marketing plans or feasibility studies with specific, targeted questions and creating a “planning/design” tier for nonprofit applicants to support predevelopment work.
- Direct county expenditures (DCE): staff said the DCE fund runs on a five‑year plan and advised the committee that DCE projects are governed by the resolution creating ECHO funds. Committee members repeatedly asked for more documentation and transparency on DCE submittals; staff said they are creating a DCE handbook and an application form for county projects to improve documentation.
- Program infrastructure: recommendations include expanding digital tools, developing onboarding and training materials for new advisory members and exploring a library‑based admission/pass program and community outreach partnerships.
Committee reaction and next steps: committee members welcomed many recommendations but asked for more detail on definitions (for example, what qualifies as an “urgent capital repair” and the mechanics of using investment income for maintenance) and for better public transparency around DCE projects. Several members asked that the final plan include clearer implementation steps and that staff present the full final draft and data visualizations before council consideration.
The strategic plan summary will be included in staff’s materials to county council; staff asked committee members to submit specific comments and edits so they can be appended to the final presentation to council.
