Resource Development Planning

What a Resource Development Plan is.

A Resource Development Plan (RDP) is the deep, documented articulation of one priority institutional initiative — its theory of change, its logic model, its stakeholder map, its resource requirements, the institutional metrics it advances, and the funding strategy that supports it. Each RDP is an institutional asset the College or University owns and maintains across funding cycles.

A partnership with WRD typically supports 2–4 active RDPs concurrently. Rotation is allowed: an RDP can be retired and a new one stood up as institutional priorities evolve. The constraint is concurrent active load, not lifetime count.

Why RDPs exist.

The federal and state grant landscape no longer rewards institutions that begin strategic work the day the RFP drops. Programs are short-window, competition is heavy, and reviewers reward proposals that read as the next step of an already-articulated strategy rather than as a framework being constructed in real time. Institutions that have done the strategic work before opportunities surface are positioned to move quickly; institutions that start at zero are too late.

The RDP is the artifact of that pre-work. Once it exists, every downstream activity — opportunity scanning, proposal writing, compliance planning, evaluation design — reads from it.

How we work with you.

• Facilitate stakeholder discovery sessions across institutional leadership, faculty, and administrative roles
• Author and maintain the RDP artifact, including theory of change, logic model, needs assessment, and stakeholder input
• Configure search profiles in the Customized Opportunity Pipeline against the RDP’s strategic priorities
• Run quarterly strategic alignment sessions with senior leadership to assess progress and adjust direction
• Update the RDP as institutional priorities evolve, partnerships emerge, or evaluation findings inform redirection

Where this fits in the WRD Grant Funding System.

Resource Development Plans are component 1 of 6 — the plan phase of the grant funding lifecycle. RDPs are the upstream substrate for the Customized Opportunity Pipeline (which scans against them), the Institutional Narrative Library and Proposal Development (which draws stakeholder input from RDP discovery sessions), and the Evaluation & Impact Reporting System (which routes findings back into RDP refinement).

Next → Customized Opportunity Pipeline