Reimagining a 5-year strategy despite the funding that never came.
“
My being able to do our economic strategy well — and not be completely consumed with it — is a big deal.”
Jon Stavney, Executive Director, NWCCOG
Agency snapshot
Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG)
31 member towns and counties, 7,000 square miles,
Executive Director: Jon Stavney
The problem
Every five years NWCCOG must produce a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) — the plan the whole region hangs their federal grant applications on. The current one was expiring in 6 months, yet the role that typically owned that work had been empty for a year. The strategy fell to Jon, yet Jon had a whole COG to run. He couldn’t skip it — but he didn’t want to file something thin, either.
member jurisdictions
empty seat, for a year
stakeholders gathered
pages to read
“I am covering an empty position — an executive covering a director-level Economic Development person that we have not backfilled for a year.”
Two ways out: a consultant he couldn’t fund, or a thin filing the region lives with for five years.
Humans ran the room. AI ran the draft.
What he did · how a department of one does a CEDS
1
He re-analyzed what the region had already said
He ran it all through Claude: the old 68-page plan, the sub-regional strategies, the local plans from 31 jurisdictions — and looked for hidden insights.
2
He turned a meeting he already had into the engagement
The annual Economic Development Summit became the kickoff — five regional leaders on a panel, 70 attendees, one afternoon. He hired KTS to run a live CEDS: facilitate the discussion and drive the AI live on the big screen, so the draft was being written while the room debated.
3
He created a draft strategy in real-time to collect live feedback
He distributed a rough draft via QR code and collected both verbal and written feedback. The second draft was shared before people had left the room.
4
He carried it home like any other document
Weeks of iteration with AI as his synthesist: staff edits, all 31 jurisdictions’ plans read across, a peer scan, an evaluation framework. Published for comment August 1 — two months ahead of the deadline.
“It’s just faster to collect people's ideas, and more robust because we're not relying on one brain to hold it all together.”
Before AI Adoption:
Weeks — or up to $90,000
After AI Adoption:
One day
A comprehensive five-year strategy — 47 strategies across five pillars, each with actions and named owners — reflective of real feedback, properly engaged, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional consultant.
“AI has enabled me to run a deep CEDS super efficiently — and not in a perfunctory way, but with real engagement. ”
What this means for you
“Don’t be afraid of utilizing AI to augment your traditional practices. It can let you focus on the important things.”
— Jon Stavney, who interviewed all 31 of his town managers himself (and has no plans to stop)
Every public agency is forced to make trade-offs between quality and cost. When report-drafting consumed dollars, community engagement became the luxury. But with AI to collapse the synthesis and drafting, the trade flips. Jon didn’t use the time to do less — he put it back into the part only he could do: engaging his community and ensuring the strategy is reflective of the needs of his region. Thanks to 70 people in a room debating in real-time.
Whose voices are you ready to hear?
Put your time where it matters most — in the real world, not in Word.
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