At the risk of being a little boastful, we’ve had a pretty good run over here with awards lately. Our Kirkland’s work picked up Best of Show at this year’s PRSA Nashville Parthenon awards, the second straight year we’ve brought home the prize. Add to that our Imperial bottle-level awards for Red White and Food, including our sixth national Silver Anvil Award, and we have been enjoying the most success in our company’s 29-year history.

But as much fun as it is to win awards, it’s just as exciting to see our clients hit the top of their fields through work we did with them. In April, the Metropolitan Nashville Planning Department did just that, as NashvilleNext received the 2016 Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan from the American Planning Association.

The award is the highest national honor for such plans, and caps more than three years of hard work by a city department that set a new standard for Nashville when it comes to community engagement.

NashvilleNext was characterized by two major components: a tireless Planning staff and an unrelenting commitment to thorough community outreach. MP&F served as the community outreach consultant on the project, which finished with more than 18,500 participants and more than 400 community meetings. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to work with planners who were willing to meet people in their neighborhoods any day, anytime and discover what they wanted for their city and their community.

Such dedication has created a model for other Metro departments as they update and address their own master plans. Thanks to NashvilleNext, community engagement is no longer a box to check on a list of to-do’s for the city; it’s the foundation for policy decisions that go all the way up to Mayor Megan Barry’s office. We’re proud of the role we played in NashvilleNext, and we’re even prouder of our client for their well-deserved recognition.