It doesn’t change services immediately. It changes how decisions are made - ensuring they are consistent, transparent, and aligned with community values.
Red Deer’s Community Compass
Community Compass: Our Master Plan for Service Delivery is a long-term plan that guides how The City plans, delivers, and invests in public-facing services over the next 12 years.
Services such as recreation, parks, transit, arts and culture, planning, social supports, emergency response, safety, security and more are included. The plan helps us deliver these services more consistently, transparently, and in alignment with what matters most to our community.
This work was first recommended in the 2021 Value for Money Audit and builds on the City's commitment to continuous improvement. It supports Red Deer's Vision for 2050 and will help ensure all services remain responsive, coordinated, and future-ready.
- Community Compass: Master Plan (pdf)
- Community Compass: What We Heard report (pdf)
- Community Compass: What We Learned report (pdf)
- Community Compass: Map Book (pdf)
What is the Community Compass
The Community Compass is not a list of projects or approved spending decisions.
It is a decision-making framework that helps guide:
- What services The City provides
- What role The City plays in delivering those services
- How investments are prioritized when resources are limited
It ensures that recommendations brought forward to Council are:
- Evidence-informed
- Aligned with community values
- Transparent in how decisions and trade-offs are considered
The Community Compass:
- Defines guiding principles for community services
- Sets clear priorities to guide investment and planning
- Supports smarter, evidence-based decision-making
- Reflects community feedback, values, and needs
The Community Compass also reflects that service delivery in Red Deer is shared. While The City delivers many services directly, others are provided in partnership with community organizations, other levels of government, and private providers. The framework helps guide how The City works within this broader system to support community outcomes.
Implementation
Implementation will be gradual and intentional. Council will begin to see elements of the Compass applied in upcoming recommendations and may be applied in pieces of the 2027 Budget process for consistency in information provided to Council in their decision-making processes.
While the tools in the Community Compass framework will be applied, project-specific engagement and analysis will still occur.
The Compass is one input into decision-making and will continue to be supported by:
- Public engagement
- Professional expertise
- Operational considerations
Next Phase: sub plans
The Community Compass establishes the “why” and “how” for service delivery decisions.
The next phase of work will focus on the “what” - developing detailed sub plans for:
- recreation
- parks
- community development
- emergency services
These master plans will define future service direction and investment priorities while remaining grounded in the Community Compass framework.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the public still be engaged in future decisions?
Yes. Project-specific engagement will continue. The Community Compass complements - not replaces - public participation.
Why is this needed?
Many existing planning documents are outdated. The Community Compass provides a modern, consistent framework to guide decisions moving forward.
Will this plan change or eliminate any services?
No decisions have been made yet. The Compass is about listening to community needs, confirming shared values, and helping guide how services evolve over time so they remain relevant and sustainable.
What efficiencies for the sub plans were realized during the development of the Community Compass?
We did the foundational work once - rather than multiple times. By leading with Community Compass, The City completed shared research, engagement, values identification, and decision‑making frameworks upfront. This avoids duplicating that same work in recreation, parks, community development and emergency services sub plans, reducing cost, staff effort, and community engagement fatigue.
Future sub plans can focus on the “what,” not the “why and how.”
Community Compass establishes the shared “why” and “how” for service delivery. As a result, upcoming sub plans can concentrate on specific service priorities, investments, and actions -moving faster, staying aligned, and minimizing the need for rework or reconciliation later.
We gain consistency, clarity, and efficiency across planning and decisions. Anchoring all sub plans to one framework ensures consistent assumptions, language, and evaluation criteria. This improves efficiency for staff and consultants, provides clearer and more comparable recommendations to Council, and reduces the risk of conflicting or competing plans over time.