How we helped a community-oriented public library set priorities for the future.
As one of the fastest growing municipalities in the Lower Mainland, the City of Richmond is changing in important and exciting ways – and so should its library services. The Richmond Public Library Board retained Spur to develop a multi-year strategic plan, responsive and inspired by the vibrant communities and people it serves. RPL wanted a strategic plan that took a data-driven approach to understanding community needs, library trends and service delivery, leveraging quantitative and qualitative input gathered from staff, library partners, community interest-holders, library customers and the general public.
This project had several interesting considerations and constraints. Here are just a few:
As is common in public library service, we discovered a predictable split between customers who want libraries to retain their traditional functions and operations, while others are keen to see more dramatic digitization of materials and services, plus innovative new programs and technologies. We had to consider this contradictory feedback in transparent and balanced ways.
Like all non-profits, RPL is led by a volunteer board of directors, passionate about library service and sharing their time outside their busy work and personal lives. They also had terms that ended at different times, with some directors leaving and new ones arriving, mid project. We had to keep everyone up to speed, and plan project meetings, review processes and other interactions with the board in ways that made the best possible use of their time, without over-burdening them.
Richmond is unique in that over 44% of residents speak Chinese (evenly split between Mandarin and Cantonese dialects), with fewer than one-third of residents speaking English. Aligned with City of Richmond language policies and approaches, the engagement to support this project would be carried out in English only, but our team wanted to take every additional measure to ensure non-English speaking and reading residents could participate.
As part of its truth and reconciliation journey, RPL is deeply committed to building mutually supportive relationships with the Indigenous peoples on whose unceded lands they operate. They wanted to ensure outreach and engagement with Musqueam First Nation was a prioritized component of our work, though strong connections did not yet exist. We had to move at the pace of trust.
Spur designed and executed several progressive phases to this project, each inviting internal and external interest holders to engage at precisely the right time, in accessible ways, and on questions that aligned with their levels of interest and influence. We also had the privilege of working with library planning specialist Emory Davidge from Urban Strategies, who complemented our team.
To start, we reviewed and summarized components of every current City of Richmond planning document currently in force—from the Official Community Plan and Council Strategic Plan, to the Seniors Strategy, Community Wellness Strategy, Youth Strategy, and Arts, Culture & Heritage Plan—identifying relevant and applicable priorities to integrate into the RPL planning process.We have also led an interest-holder mapping workshop, producing a comprehensive list of groups to engage across the spectrum of impact and influence. Informed by what we knew about Richmond residents’ language needs, we made a plan with RPL to translate introductory language about our engagement into Simplified Chinese, inviting residents to seek out staff who could help them participate, which we incorporated into our engagement tactics.
Here’s how we approached the rest of the work:
We enlisted a library futurist and facilitated a library futurism workshop with this special guest speaker. We explored innovation in library science and inspiring examples of unexpected ways libraries meet community needs, not just in North America but worldwide. Inspired by what they heard, RPL staff and board members generated a wealth of ideas for the future of their library. We combined the outcomes of this session with a close review of past strategic plans, arriving at a set of key engagement themes that would serve as pillars to the engagement moving forward.
We designed, launched, and promoted an online survey to gather input from patrons, interest-holders, and community members from across Richmond, sharing their feedback on the library’s proposed strategic directions and priorities. When participation rates were low early on, we quickly developed a digital marketing campaign and executed swift media relations to boost visibility of the engagement, generating earned coverage by local media and enhancing reach to key audiences online.
We designed and facilitated four in-person sessions with specific equity-deserving groups, including newcomers to Richmond, parents of young children, seniors, and representatives of local non-profit and community-serving organizations. We also led a final goal-setting workshop with the board of trustees and senior leadership team, incorporating and leveraging the results of the staff and public engagement, so these organizational leaders could respond to and make concrete recommendations, informed by the input of the communities they serve.
Once an organization’s leaders generate a vision for the future, it’s up to us to group these ideas in rationale categories, and to translate them into language that is clear and inspiring. We rewrote the board and leadership team’s directives into 37 initiatives across five goal areas, respecting nuanced language and RPL’s unique brand voice. We also built RPL a custom operational dashboard that translated its high-level priorities into concrete, short-term actions staff could own and report back on, month by month, illustrating progress in key areas throughout the duration of the plan.
We were proud to hit the following key performance indicators:
The RPL Board of Directors approved its new dynamic, four-year strategic plan – Your Library, Our Future – in June 2024, complete with an operational dashboard staff could use to stay accountable to their shared priorities over time. The Board and executive team was delighted with the outcome.
