GTECH’s Next Three Years

GTECH CEO, Andrew Butcher, unpacks GTECH’s three year strategic plan.

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As you may know, we at GTECH started off this year with a healthy dose of strategic planning.
It has been three years since our last planning process and a lot has happened since then. We doubled our staff and revenue, hosted more than 90 Ambassadors in more than 60 communities, launched new initiatives like Lots To Love; Green Playces; and The Healthy Home Incentive Program, retired the ReFuel Pgh program, and transitioned our energy efficiency work. We’ve even won a few prizes along the way. It was time to provide an updated map charting our next chapter honing what we do, how we do it and – most importantly–why we do it.

To that extent I wanted to offer a few highlights to whet your appetite. For starters we are changing our name to “Salsa Verde” finally achieving an all-burrito brand identity. (I’m kidding, of course!)

“It was time to provide an updated map charting our next chapter honing what we do, how we do it – and most importantly why we do it.”

The “why we do what we do” has become increasingly focused. After engaging more than four dozen stakeholders, partners and allies in our planning process (thanks to support from The Forbes Funds), it is becoming increasingly clear that we love using vacant land as a beautiful starting point for a comprehensive, innovative, inclusive and sustainable community development process. In fact we know that it is the process not the product that matters the most and if action and connectivity are baked into that process then inspiring things can happen.

As a result we aim to help establish Pittsburgh as the most innovative and inclusive city in the country in transitioning land-use liabilities into opportunities for community health and resilience.

“…we aim to help establish Pittsburgh as the most innovative and inclusive city in the country in transitioning land-use liabilities into opportunities for community health and resilience.”

In order to do this we have resolved that the key to addressing distributed problems, such as vacant land, is by distributing capacity to individuals to take action where action is possible. By distributed capacity, our updated theory of change specifies:

People are products of their environment. Changing an unjust environment requires equipping and empowering people. Empowerment generates and captures energy; energy enables action; action begets action; fusing tangible, incremental actions with an inclusive process that connects people to opportunity fuels an upward spiral of community health.

Consequently we will aim to:

• distribute capacity to transition land-use liabilities towards community assets
• apply innovation to foster collective impact
• accelerate financial self-sustainability
• ensure GTECH is a great place to work and produces great work

To this extent, GTECH’s aims to achieve the following in the next three years:

• launch six new Ambassador programs throughout the greater Pittsburgh region extending the program to three years a piece
• help create a viable and scaleable land stewardship workforce development program
• invest in collaborative infrastructure to bundle environmental services to magnify community benefit
• create platforms of learning for people of all ages to connect to relevant educational opportunities through the Green Playces program
• help establish a climate resilience capacity in a community development context
• continue investing in social capital to fuel social innovation

It is a bold plan that we couldn’t feel more excited about. There are monumental shifts underway in the local, state and federal landscape shaping our work. But the role in growing the intersection between community development and the green economy through tangible, incremental actions has never been more important.

Please help fuel our efforts and get involved. Get your hands dirty supporting an Ambassador, join the Social Capital Council or consider a financial contribution so we can continue to attract and retain hard working, talented and dedicated team members.