Valley Vision; Connecting Citizens, Shaping Solutions

The Blueprint Project
Over the next 50 years, the Sacramento Region is projected to add 1.7 million people, one million new jobs and 840,000 new homes. Preparing and planning for this growth creates challenges that impact everyone in our six-county region. Where and how should we grow? How will this growth affect our quality of life? Implemented through a partnership between SACOG and Valley Vision, the two-year-long Blueprint Project involved thousands of citizens from every corner of the region and cutting-edge modeling technology that gave real-time feedback on policy choices aimed at confronting these questions head-on. The result: An integrated “blueprint” for our region that guides transportation and land use decision-making over the next 50 years and factors in key regional considerations like air quality and open space. The Blueprint Project has permanently enhanced local planning and created a long-range context for local land-use decision-making. The plan was unanimously adopted by the SACOG board in Dec. 2004. The SACOG/Valley Vision project has won numerous awards, including the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award. It is Valley Vision’s signature project to date.

Partnership For Prosperity
In April, 2006, the 34 organizations that collaborated as part of Partnership for Prosperity (PFP) published and began implementing their economic development strategy, known as the Business Plan for the Sacramento Region.  The plan is divided into five action areas which play a central role in shaping a prosperous future.  They include: Business Development, Clean Energy Technology, High School Education, Post-Secondary Education, and Civic Amenities.  Valley Vision staff worked with volunteer leaders from business, government, education and the community to move key initiatives in each area from concept to successful completion, providing strategic advice and direct assistance.

An example product from PFP:  Valley Vision partnered with the Sacramento Regional Research Institute, LEED and Sacramento Works to complete an unprecedented 10-year occupational forecast for our region.  This extensive $100,000 research project matched federal, state, and local employment data with a new searchable database that links current and future jobs to regional job training providers. 

Hmong Health Collaborative
Valley Vision served as the "glue" in this cooperative effort to promote culturally competent health and mental health care for the Hmong community, locally and throughout California. With funding from The California Endowment, Valley Vision supported the Collaborative in reaching their goals of improving access to Hmong-language services in healthcare settings, increasing healthcare providers' cultural competence when working with Hmong patients, helping the Hmong community educate policy makers on their health needs, and helping the Hmong community better navigate the Western healthcare system. Through technical assistance and training, these direct service providers built their capacities and also became healthcare advocates for their communities. Additionally, Valley Vision’s overarching goal was to help ten separate organizations become a sustainable collaborative. We successfully exited this four-year project with the Collaborative functioning under its own governance structure.

Rural Urban Connection Strategy
Valley Vision partnered with SACOG and Agriculture in Metropolitan Regions (AMR) to develop an economic and environmental sustainability strategy for rural areas. This project conducted an assessment of the local food system in the Sacramento region, and research innovations and best practices that support expanding the local food system.

Healthy Living Map 
Working in partnership with the region’s four nonprofit health systems (Catholic Healthcare West - Mercy, Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, and UC Davis Health System), and our technology partner Sky’s the Limit Interactive, Valley Vision helped build a revolutionary “health map” that aids decision-makers in targeting public and private health resources where they are needed most. 
This 10-month project has resulted in:

• A novel online relational database that displays health status information down to the ZIP code level;
• User-friendly community health asset information; and
• Key disease prevention and health access indicators to highlight specific needs for services among those who are uninsured and underinsured.

Our road to the health map included interviews with key stakeholders, focused conversations about key subjects in prevention and health access, county-wide gatherings and other activities. To read the coverage in the Sacramento Bee, visit our press room.

Regional Open Space Inventory
Valley Vision partnered with a group of regional environmental, business, planning and regulatory organizations to gather and develop important information about the status of our open spaces. With technical assistance from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Valley Vision created a first-of-its-kind inventory and map of all regional lands that are protected for non-urban uses in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties. The inventory was followed-up with a brief report highlighting outcomes of stakeholder interviews to gather reactions to the map and suggestions for how the region can move forward. The inventory was incorporated into the RUCS project, on which Valley Vision is partnering with SACOG.

Metropolitan Transportation Plan
The Metropolitan Transportation Plan is a 28-year plan for transportation improvements in our six-county region based on projections for growth in population, housing and jobs. The MTP is key to the quality of life and economic health of our region. Valley Vision’s partnership with SACOG assisted in the community outreach piece of the plan and brought community members to the table to help guide how and where $41.7 billion in transportation funds will be spent.

Quality of Life Report (PDF)
Objective data is the key that unlocks complex problems and serves as an indispensable tool for wise decision-making. Every five years Valley Vision takes a look at some key measures that cut across our six-county region that tell us how we are doing. Our Quality of Life Report examines 44 different indicators cutting across three fields – the economy, people and place. An eight-member project team worked for months drafting the last 2004 report and a 17-member technical review committee of experts from government, education, business and nonprofit groups reviewed and added to their work. The Quality of Life Report is the Sacramento Region’s only regional-scale report that examines key measures that, taken together, provide a comprehensive picture of our region’s health and quality of life. Many leaders and organizations use our report to help understand important regional issues and trends as they make important decisions.

Valuing Agriculture Initiative
Valley Vision's Valuing Agriculture Initiative brought resources and data to discussions about how to preserve agricultural lands in the Sacramento Region. The goal: develop preservation strategies that are attractive to farmers and ranchers and reflective of their input. The series of forums, discussion groups and summits helped promote understanding between agriculture, civic, education, environmental and policy leaders from throughout the region. It continued in 2005 with Holding Our Ground, a series of four forums that helped inform farmers and community leaders on the pros and cons of real-world efforts to keep agriculture healthy and sustainable.

Multi-cultural Business Forum
Valley Vision and the Sacramento Business Journal lend support to the Alliance For Business and Community (the Sacramento Asian-Pacific, Hispanic and Black Chambers of Commerce) for this unique series of annual half-day conferences, designed to spotlight Sacramento’s place as the nation’s most diverse and integrated city. Begun in 2004, Multi-Cultural Business Forums have featured dynamic leaders such as U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral, Emmy Award-winning television journalist John Quinones and local ethnic business legends. Attendees from small and large businesses also attend valuable workshops touching all facets of the ethnic marketplace, from marketing and leadership to procurement and contracting. More than 400 leaders from business and government attend the conference each year. The 2006 event was Oct. 5 at the Sheraton Grand in downtown Sacramento.

Beehive Sacramento
This partnership between Valley Vision, the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and the Community Services Planning Council resulted in a dynamic Website designed to empower residents of underserved, lower-income communities. The consumer-friendly self-help site includes straightforward connections to financial and government services, educational resources, jobs, community events, local businesses and other services that help improve daily lives. Stakeholder interviews, community forums, focus groups and surveys helped design the site and drive content creation, offered in a variety of languages and funded by the California Department of Transportation. The Beehive is a unique solution that helps those in need and serves as a ready resource for government and social service agencies providing assistance.

Green Valley Alliance
Valley Vision launched the Green Valley Alliance in 1998 to explore the concept of a comprehensive, regional strategy for conservation of open space, agricultural land, recreational land and wildlife habitat. It was the only forum in the region at the time for communication and information sharing among the public sector, local land trusts, habitat conservation planners, businesspeople and the community at large. The James Irvine Foundation and the Great Valley Center funded the project.

Regional Compact (PDF)
This unique declaration – signed by virtually every city and county in the six-county region – gave recognition to the fact that many public policy and community issues can only be solved at the regional level and that cooperation among jurisdictions is crucial to make those solutions endure. Launched in 1999, the Regional Compact created unprecedented dialogue and inspired widespread awareness as city council members, county supervisors and the public debated the merits of signing the document. The effort at building this “common ground” for regional action by Valley Vision proved instrumental in creating the groundwork for future regional discussions and results.