MORE ABOUT OUR STRATEGIC PLANNING

This year, Velocity is focusing on creating a strategic plan to guide Velocity from 2026 to 2030. 

A strategic plan is a guiding document, used in concert with our mission, vision and values, to help the staff and board make decisions over the course of Velocity’s next five years. It lays out the goals and priorities for the organization, milestones within those goals, and the ways we hope to measure our successes and opportunities for growth. To achieve big goals, we need documents like a strategic plan to keep us on track and accountable to the incremental steps we need to take to get there. 

We believe that planning for the future of this organization is an act of community care, and we’ve created this year-long planning process to make sure we’re incorporating as many voices as possible into this guiding document so that the process is as collaborative and artist-led as our programs and operations. 

Who has been involved so far? 

• The Artist Circle has dreamed with us about how our programs can grow to better support artists, and helped us prioritize which changes will have the greatest impact on both artists and audiences. 
• The Board and Strategic Planning and Cultivation Committee has helped us explore what it will take to expand our staff and operations to support growth sustainably, and how we can best represent our goals and impact to potential stakeholders, funders, and partners. 
• The Community Survey asked about both programs and space, and what our community needs from Velocity’s programs and space from the perspective of artist, audience-member, and class-taker.
• The Staff has woven through all of these efforts, and worked to distill and document the conversations, adding their insights from numerous informal conversations and experiences with the people Velocity engages, and sharing their own perspectives as artists, cultural workers, and employees. 

While the plan is still in development, three core focus areas have emerged: Program Growth, Capacity Building, and Space Acquisition.

With those priorities clarified, we are now getting into the details, mapping out the specific goals, milestones, and guiding values that will shape our decisions over the next five years. We have a few more steps to take this year, including a Community Town Hall, a retreat with the Artist Circle, Velocity Board, committee members, and staff, and, of course, creating a well-designed and clear document to share with the community. 

We plan to publish the strategic plan for 2026-2030 in the final months of 2025, when we celebrate the artists and projects of 2025, and share what we’re looking forward to in 2026 and beyond.