Strategic Plan

Strategic planning is critical to organizational success. It involves developing, maintaining, and adhering to an organizational vision, mission, and set of strategic goals. Strategic planning helps an organization determine where it wants to go in order to achieve the greatest success. The City of Fayetteville's strategic planning process involves brainstorming with City Council, staff, and, most importantly, residents to determine short- and long-term direction for the City. The City accomplishes this through staff strategic planning meetings, a yearly City Council strategic planning retreat, and periodic Cafe Conversation events with residents.

FY26 Strategic Priorities

The Mayor and Council found consensus through collaborative exercises on the following set of strategic priorities for FY26:

Develop a comprehensive approach to community safety.
Enhance economic growth opportunities throughout the City.
Commit to revitalization efforts, emphasizing affordable housing needs.
Evaluate and expand transportation, transit and other connectivity needs for residents.
Increase Parks and Recreation opportunities for youth engagement and interaction.

Top5_StrategicPriorities_revised

Recap: FY25 Strategic Priorities

Mission, Vision, and Core Values

Our Vision

An attractive, culturally diverse, and inclusive city that is safe, prosperous, innovative, and unified.

Our Mission

To provide high quality and sustainable public services for our communities to thrive and our businesses to grow.

Our Values

We, the Mayor, City Council, Managers, Supervisors, and Employees serve with respect to safeguard and enhance the public trust in City government:

Responsibility
Ethics
Stewardship
Professionalism
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Commitment
Teamwork

Framework & Planning Process

Framework

The main elements of the City’s strategic plan represent a commitment to serving the community:

The Vision for the community
The organizational Mission
Core Values
Five-Year Goals that support the long-term vision for the City
Performance Measures that identify annual targets
The Action Agenda which outlines annual Top Policy Priorities and respective action items, or Targets for Action (TFA), to advance progress toward the goals.

Planning Process

As the City of Fayetteville continues to grow and thrive, the City Council looks to chart a course with a strategic plan which articulates a vision for our community's future that will ensure vitality and sustainability. The City is guided by a comprehensive strategic planning process. City Council meets annually to refine the items that comprise the City's strategic plan and to ensure that it is reflective of the changing needs of our growing community. The strategic planning process consists of four key phases, starting with gathering input from the Senior Management Team (department directors) and citizens, followed by a City Council retreat. The input from these first two phases is used in the development of the strategic plan itself. The final phase of the plan is implementation.

Development, Implementation and Reporting

The City Manager has the overall responsibility of ensuring the strategic plan is implemented. Individual Targets for Action have "leadership sponsors" as well as project staff assigned that will lead implementation. The staff will continue the current practice of providing updates to the City Council on the advancement of the strategic plan on a quarterly basis during Council meetings. The City will communicate performance results to the public in an effort to ensure transparency and accountability.