Tampa Bay Vision 21
Charting the Economic Future For The Region

Creating a Platform for Visioning in the Tampa Bay Region - Fairfield Index Research

The seven-county Tampa Bay region must do a better job of focusing on the important goals for the next 20 years. While the Tampa Bay Partnership will continue to operate with multi-year strategies for its work in economic development and public policy, the current five-year horizon is insufficient when looking at goals and challenges that are truly long-term in nature.

A Cohesive Roadmap For The Future
Tampa Bay’s most recent history is sprinkled with efforts that can be viewed as being “ala carte opportunistic” – the Florida 2012 bid to get the summer Olympic games being among the most laudable. However, each of these initiatives has been pursued individually – without the benefit of a wider, longer-term view toward what is essential for making this region’s economy and quality of life as viable and robust as possible. At present we don’t have the benefit of a roadmap that gives us a shared vision and some agreed-upon pathways on which to travel. A regional visioning process will build consensus regarding the region’s sense of itself and where it is headed. It may, indeed, produce some bold, audacious goals for Tampa Bay to inspire business and community leadership to create one of the leading regions of the 21st Century.

What Matters Most For The Region?

• Economic diversification, redevelopment and sustainability
• Higher-wage, higher-skill workforce
• Top-notch education
• Quality of life Infrastructure – water planning and delivery/well-planned and funded transportation
• Smart growth, fiscal and governance policies
• Regional collaboration, consensus and true sense of community
• Leadership capacity
• Diversity and inclusion

Attendees at the 2004 Regional Leadership Conference came up with many attributes of a strong, economically competitive region, such as:

• Shared vision/agenda
• Public/private collaboration
• Retaining and attracting talent
• Business climate
• Quality growth
• Quality of life
• Quality education
• Workforce housing

How Do We Get Started?

Many strategic plans and visioning documents exist, the products of many organizations and institutions throughout the region and state. However, we don’t have a clear sense of how they can be integrated and help contribute to an overall regional vision. We need to start with a comprehensive inventory of this research – including sound analysis of how these numerous strategies and studies can provide a diagnostic overview. 

The objective will be to better understand the goals being pursued across a wide spectrum of the business, government, economic development, education, and other sectors of the community that impact Tampa Bay as a whole. It is also important to look at projects such as the Florida Chamber’s New Cornerstone Report for the next decade, since it contains many strategic goals that need to be implemented regionally.

Who Will Spearhead The Effort?

The Tampa Bay Partnership Regional Research & Education Foundation will oversee this visioning process. Dan Mahurin, outgoing chair of the Partnership and CEO for SunTrust Bank Tampa Bay, has agreed to chair the foundation. In this role, he will lead a steering group of 21 business leaders and wide-ranging thinkers to help develop this visioning process. This group will work on a number of steps, i.e., where are we now (research assessment); where are we going (trend analysis); where do we want to go (the formation of a vision statement); and how do we get there (implementation and action). We recognize that regional visioning embodies stewardship of place and, as such, must look at a process that values diversity and inclusion in truly stimulating a regional dialogue about the future of Tampa Bay.

What’s Ahead With Philanthropy’s Help?
It’s exciting to think of the leading role that organized philanthropy can play in making this happen. Foundations and other philanthropic organizations can participate in a relatively new form of grantmaking that supports regional strategies, regional institutions, and regional collaboration. The Community Foundation of Tampa Bay and other foundations can act as catalysts for funding for this visioning process, by making a commitment over a three-year period and entering into a partnership with the Tampa Bay Partnership’s Foundation. One possible model would be an endowment fund for economic development that would be a vehicle for donor-advised funds. (Note: See Alliance For Regional Stewardship’s monograph on “Metropolitan Regional Grantmaking: Promising Practices and the Stewardship of Place.”)

Overall, the Partnership’s Regional Research & Education Foundation will raise the necessary financial resources through a combination of philanthropic and business support, matching funding from corporate donors, family foundations, and other organizations and individuals. ___________________________________
For more information, contact:
Stuart L. Rogel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tampa Bay Partnership
(813)878-2208
srogel@tampabay.org