Bowman County, North Dakota

As part of the VisionWest ND Planning Project, Bowman County Leadership participated in a 4 hour session with Building Communities, Inc., reviewing the strategic planning initiative they began in 2009, with DLN Consulting, Inc. Bowman County was well ahead of the planning curve and had experienced a measurable amount of success from their prior planning efforts. As such, Bowman County wanted to continue to work with the objectives and goals they had set forth in prior planning activities.

The focus of the planning process with DLN in 2009, was leadership. This planning effort was a Community Development Project under the Bush Foundation’s Home Town Competitiveness Grant. The effort was led by ten community leaders with representation from the Bowman County commission, the Bowman County Development Corporation, the Bowman Area Chamber of Commerce, the City of Bowman and the Bowman Renaissance Zone Committee. The planning process included sessions designed to educate and inspire participants in their roles as leaders, a review of prior planning efforts in Bowman County back to 1998, a SWOT analysis, along with the selection of economic, population and quality of life strategies for implementation. At that time, Bowman County chose 14 priorities to focus on under Economic and Population Strategies. They also chose six Quality of Life strategies for implementation as well.

In January of 2011, DLN Consulting, Inc., again met with Bowman County Leadership to review the progress over the two previous years. It was determined that two of the 14 strategies selected were completed and 11 of them had work on-going and one still needed to be done. There were four additional strategies added.

Upon review of the strategies that were updated in January 2011, Building Communities assisted the Steering Committee in determining which strategies had been completed, which strategies were still on-going and one additional strategy was needed. At the recommendation of VisionWestND and Building Communities it was also determined that each strategy would have a “champion” or lead in Bowman County.

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