About the Rapid Recovery Program
The Rapid Recovery Plan (RRP) Program is intended to provide every municipality in Massachusetts the opportunity to develop actionable, project-based recovery plans tailored to the unique economic challenges and COVID-19 related impacts to downtowns, town centers, and commercial areas across the commonwealth.
What is a Rapid Recovery Plan?
Local Recovery Plans will include analysis and exploration of challenges, barriers, strategies, and actions, with a focus on developing tactical and strategic project recommendations that help communities achieve their recovery goals. The program provides technical assistance through Plan Facilitators assigned to each community applicant (e.g., city, town, or nonprofit entity) and Subject Matter Experts who are available to help seed ideas for project recommendations and best practices webinars, as well as inform and further refine project recommendations through individual consultations.
Communities and Plan Facilitators will be matched and will work together to assess COVID-19 impacts, convene community partners to solicit project ideas and provide feedback, and develop project recommendations. The effort will culminate in plans that summarize the diagnostic findings and offer clear, tactical project recommendations.
Video recording from the RRP Close Out Webinar held December 15th, 2021
Slides from the Rapid Recovery Planning Webinar held December 9, 2020
Questions and Answers from December 9, 2020 Local Rapid Recovery Plan webinar can be downloaded here.
Rapid Recovery Communities
The RRP was open to every municipality within the commonwealth. Through this program, participating communities are matched with a Plan Facilitator, who will be charged with conducting an analysis of COVID-19 impacts and facilitate the development of clearly defined and actionable projects aligned with communities goals.
RRP Diagnostic Dashboard and Final Diagnostic Report
ln Phase 1/Diagnostic of the RRP program: Plan Facilitators utilized the Rapid Recovery Plan Diagnostic Framework. The framework was designed to ensure methodical diagnosis of challenges and opportunities in each community, and to identify strategies and projects that aligned with the interests and priorities of each community. The framework looks at four areas of analysis: Physical Environment, Business Environment, Market lnformation, and Administrative Capacity--each equipped with guiding questions to direct research conducted by Plan Facilitators.
The Final Diagnostic Report/ Findings from the Rapid Recovery Report is an amalgamation of the data from the 124 RRP communities. The Diagnostic Dashboard is a visual representation and the individual community results.
RRP Final Community Plans
Phase 3/ Final Plan Development: After completing all three phases the final plans were submitted-124 plans and over 1,100 projects.
Technical Assistance Resources
The Local Recovery Plan Program offers resources to communities, Plan Facilitators and Subject Matter Experts to understand the program objectives and have the tools necessary to methodology and ensure that outcomes help
Toolkits
- Branding Toolkit
- District Management Toolkit
- E-Commerce-Technologies for Retail Toolkit
- Equity Toolkit
- Hospitality Tourism Toolkit
- Marketing Toolkit
- Outdoor Dining Retail Toolkit
- Pop-up Vacant Storefront Activation Toolkit
- Sign Façade Toolkit
- Wayfinding Toolkit
Best Practice Sheet Compendiums
- Best Practice Compendiums Index Document
- Public Realm Best Practice Sheets Compendium
- Private Realm Best Practice Sheets Compendium
- Revenue & Sales Best Practice Sheets Compendium
- Cultural & Arts Best Practice Sheets Compendium
- Admin Capacity Best Practice Sheets Compendium
- Tenants Mix Best Practice Sheets Compendium
Subject Matter Expert Webinar Recordings
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Public Realm: “Outside the Box” Ideas and your Community’s Post COVID19 Recovery (6/10/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF - Public Realm: “Outside the Box” Ideas and your Community’s Post COVID19 Recovery (6/10/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Tenant Mix: Post COVID-19 Restaurant Survival: Key Technologies, Strategies and Best Practices (6/3/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF -Tenant Mix: Post COVID-19 Restaurant Survival: Key Technologies, Strategies and Best Practices (6/3/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Tenant Mix: Small Business Technical Assistance and Beyond: Helping Small Businesses Stabilize and Grow in the Face of COVID-19 (6/1/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF - Tenant Mix: Small Business Technical Assistance and Beyond: Helping Small Businesses Stabilize and Grow in the Face of COVID-19 (6/1/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Private Realm: Connecting with Customers - Using Your Storefront, Display Windows & Signs to Increase Business (5/25/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF - Private Realm: Connecting with Customers - Using Your Storefront, Display Windows & Signs to Increase Business (5/25/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Public Realm: How Branding and Wayfinding can be a Key Part of Covid19 Commercial Reawakening (5/20/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF - Public Realm: How Branding and Wayfinding can be a Key Part of Covid-19 Commercial Reawakening (5/20/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Economic Equity & Culturally relevant Approaches: Embedding Racial and Equity Lenses to Ensure Inclusive Economic Growth within Commercial Areas Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic (5/18/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF: Economic Equity - Embedding Racial and Equity Lenses to Ensure Inclusive Economic Growth within Commercial Areas Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic (5/18/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording: Culture & Arts Community Resilience - COVID-19 Impacts and Re-partnering Arts + Culture to Main Street (5/13/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF: Culture & Arts Community Resilience - COVID-19 Impacts and Re-partnering Arts + Culture to Main Street (5/13/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Revenue & Sales: Surviving & Thriving by Leveraging Retail Technology in a Post-COVID-19 World (5/12/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF - Revenue & Sales: Surviving & Thriving by Leveraging Retail Technology in a Post-COVID-19 World (5/12/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording: Revenue & Sales Laws of Attraction - Marketing, Programming, and Interactive Strategies to Bring People (back) Downtown during COVID-19 (5/6/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF: Revenue & Sales Laws of Attraction - Marketing, Programming, and Interactive Strategies to Bring People (back) Downtown during COVID-19 (5/6/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording - Administrative Capacity II: Downtown Organizations - How Downtown Organizations Mobilize a Pandemic Response & Recovery (4/22/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF - Administrative Capacity II: Downtown Organizations - How Downtown Organizations Mobilize a Pandemic Response & Recovery (4/22/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF: Overcoming Zoning, Perming, and Licensing Hurdles to help Municipalities and Businesses Succeed in the Time of COVID-19 Slide Deck (4/15/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording: Public Space Transformation - COVID-19 Impacts on Parking, Biking, Sidewalks & Streets (4/14/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF: Public Space Transformation - COVID-19 Impacts on Parking, Biking, Sidewalks & Streets (4/14/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar Recording: Public Space Transformation - Finding Opportunity in Overlooked Places (4/8/2021)
- RRP SME Webinar PDF: Public Space Transformation - Finding Opportunity in Overlooked Places Slide Deck (4/8/2021)
Rapid Recovery Consultants
The commonwealth has invited consultants to participate in our RRP as either Plan Facilitators or Subject Matter Experts. Plan Facilitators will lead communities through diagnostic, project development, and plan creation phases. Subject Matter Experts will provide best practice information via topical webinars and help communities refine projects through one-on-one consultations when applicable.