This Version II Summary Guide is intended to provide an affordable step-by-step outline manual for students or individual professionals wanting to learn how to prepare a master plan for smaller park and recreation agencies. The authors are professional parks and recreation planners who have conducted more than 450 successful community plans around the United States. This guide explains tasks can be completed by agencies and provides an overview of other tasks, such as a statistically valid survey, which may be most effectively and efficiently completed as contracted services, and why they are important. In addition, it provides an overview of the potential decision to contract with an independent third party, such as a professional park, recreation, and open space management consulting firm, which can provide unbiased credibility to the planning process. Suggestions for decision-making, community and stakeholder engagement, innovative inventory and programming analysis, financial review, technological tools, and an appropriate approval process are included. A full Version I Guide is also available separately, which includes 18 valuable appendix resources, such as questionnaires, matrices, invitation and inventory templates, and other sample documents to help fully implement a comprehensive planning process.

This guide is intended to offer university instructors and/or smaller community public agency leaders an affordable step-by-step blueprint of how to prepare a community-wide systems master plan for parks and recreation agencies. The authors are professional parks and recreation planners who have conducted more than 450 community plans around the U.S. The guide describes how most tasks can be completed in house, while some tasks, such as a statistically valid community survey, may be most effectively and efficiently completed as contracted or partnered services. It provides an overview of the potential decision to contract with an independent third party, such as a professional park, recreation, and open space management consulting firm, which can provide unbiased credibility to the planning process, but may be cost prohibitive for smaller agencies. Suggestions for successful decision-making, community and stakeholder engagement, innovative inventory, programming analysis, technological tools, financial analysis, and an appropriate approval process are included. This Version I Full Guide is written for instructors wanting to fully understand and teach a comprehensive master planning process, and/or for agency leaders who may not have access to adequate funding to hire an effective third party firm to complete a thorough public process and master plan but still need a plan to help their agency set long-range goals and run effectively and efficiently. This Full Guide includes 18 valuable appendix resources, such as questionnaires, matrices, invitation and inventory templates, and other sample documents to help fully implement a comprehensive planning process.