Understandthe Need
DriveEconomic Development
Leavea Legacy
Overcome Barriers to Community Advancement
Few community leaders have the accurate data and support they need to take informed, decisive action for their community. If you’ve been eager to make a difference but, roadblocks—like complicated bureaucratic processes or a lack of strategy—have prevented you from getting your idea off the ground, Civitas Strategies can help.
Chart a Clear Path to Progress
With robust community & economic development services
At Civitas Strategies, we specialize in assisting both community leaders and public officials to understand the data, develop an innovative plan, and connect with the right developers and contractors to achieve their goals.
Community & Economic Development
Driving sustainable community growth
Streamlining your processes to make your services more flexible and efficient, ensuring your government is responsive and available to constituents.
Our comprehensive planning services involve robust elected officials, staff members and community stakeholder engagement and thoughtful policy development to guide future land use, growth, transportation, and capital planning. By collaborating with the community, we create strategic, forward-looking plans that support development and align with local priorities.
Veridus provides economic development representation by drafting RFPs, evaluating capital structures, and offering recommendations based on long-term viability. Acting as an extension of municipal staff, we engage directly with potential developers to ensure projects align with community goals and support lasting growth.
We leverage demographic data, budget information, policy goals, and vision statements to analyze potential projects, ensuring they align with community objectives. This data-driven approach supports effective planning and smooth implementation, enhancing project impact and alignment with long-term goals.
Strengthening your community’s ability to withstand and recover from economic disruptions, fostering long-term stability.
We utilize demographic research on wages, age distribution, income levels, existing housing stock, and regional data to identify the housing types needed to support a community's growth. This analysis helps ensure that future housing aligns with the economic and social needs of residents, fostering balanced development.
Helping you understand available incentives, identifying what works best for your community, and getting creative in funding your development projects.
Adding expertise and capacity to your municipal staff, managing projects from concepts to occupancy, including infrastructure and needs assessments.
Facilitating collaborative ventures between the public and private sectors to leverage resources and expertise for your community’s benefit.
Government Advisory & Innovation
Empowering local governments for success
Mayor/City & Town Council Training in strategic priority setting and policy governance equips council members to focus on defining high-level goals and policies while empowering staff to make implementation decisions. This approach enables elected officials to hold staff accountable for outcomes and ensures resources are provided to achieve community projects effectively.
Economic development and redevelopment services support councils and boards in training, project identification, strategic planning, and implementation, equipping them to drive local growth initiatives. These services also include guidance in negotiating with developers and reviewing public incentives to foster productive partnerships, bringing strategic projects to fruition.
Our executive recruitment services for municipal managers encompass assessing position needs, creating job brochures, advertising, conducting preliminary candidate evaluations, supporting final interview processes with the council, assisting in negotiations, and managing placement.
With over 30 years of experience in municipal management assistance, Veridus supports municipalities by providing expert interim management across departments such as city/town administration, public works, utilities, economic development, and zoning.
Our services empower communities to prepare for growth by strategically planning and guiding utility expansion and infrastructure projects. We focus on right-sizing initiatives to meet current and future needs, ensuring responsible development while maximizing community impact. Whether through identifying high-ROI economic development projects, supporting infrastructure planning and implementation, or exploring strategic annexation opportunities, we tailor solutions to support growth in housing, commerce, and industry. Importantly, we recognize that annexation isn’t always required—our flexible approach ensures your community can expand utilities and infrastructure effectively to meet its goals.
Our municipal and department-specific strategic planning services, including master planning, support communities in defining their vision, outlining actionable steps, and enhancing departmental efficiency and workflow. Through targeted improvements and effective evaluation and implementation tools, we ensure that progress aligns with community goals, fostering long-term growth, streamlined operations, and improved service to residents.
We support elected and appointed officials in developing impactful community policies and providing tailored implementation strategies. From personnel expansion and reorganization to economic development incentives, our guidance ensures that policies are practical, actionable, and aligned with community goals.
Empowering you with the skills and knowledge to effectively serve on commissions and make informed decisions.
Making sure your projects are completed on time, within budget, and to your satisfaction through expert management.
Your Changemaking Partners
Civitas Strategies brings over three decades of community and economic development experience working throughout Indiana and nationwide. We work on a broad array of economic development projects, serving as a trusted voice for governments and helping to add capacity and expertise where needed.
We equip cities, towns and organizations with the relevant data to empower the decision-making process in their communities, while leveraging their unique amenities, managing growth, and aligning with national trends and best practices in economic development.
Let’s Transform Your Community
We’ve Simplified Our Process Into Three Phases
Analyze
Evaluate plans, shape a vision, gather data, and assess the community to align development with local goals.
Plan
Create a plan with strategies, goals, and a growth roadmap supported by data, funding options, and visuals.
Implement
Ensure accountability and action, making sure the plan is actively followed and adjusted as needed.
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Analyze
Evaluate plans, shape a vision, gather data, and assess the community to align development with local goals.
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Plan
Create a plan with strategies, goals, and a growth roadmap supported by data, funding options, and visuals.
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Implement
Ensure accountability and action, making sure the plan is actively followed and adjusted as needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
To promote sustainable growth, your community can make investments in quality of place, housing, and community and economic development. Often this can be in the form of securing property and leveraging local tools available including Redevelopment Commissions and Tax Increment Financing (TIF). It’s also important to develop a community-based vision for sustainable growth that guides development and redevelopment strategies.
We firmly believe that community engagement is the cornerstone of any successful planning process. By actively involving the public and stakeholders, we ensure that the final plan genuinely reflects the community's needs, values, and aspirations. This includes involving key stakeholders from the outset and employing diverse methods for collecting public input such as surveys, workshops, online meetings, and public event engagement. By fostering ongoing dialogue and collaboration, we ensure the final plan reflects the community's vision, building trust and facilitating successful implementation and community-driven growth.
We ensure effective engagement during the planning process by fostering open communication and collaboration through a variety of methods. Public meetings and ongoing stakeholder engagement create opportunities to gather diverse perspectives, while surveys and web-based tools make participation accessible and convenient for all. This inclusive approach not only builds community buy-in, but also shapes the final plan to reflect the unique needs, priorities, and aspirations of the stakeholders involved, ensuring it is both practical and broadly supported.
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Understand your community’s greatest need… and the plan you need to address it.
We’d love to get to know you and your vision. Take the first step to start the conversation. No obligation, no sales tactics.