Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina

2025-2050 Vision Report

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This report, “Our Southern Lowcountry: A 25-Year & 4-County Community Vision,” is a vision for how every resident in our community can thrive and pursue a path to achieve their goals. Specifically, it captures the shared hopes, dreams, and wisdom of our community while connecting and affirming those findings with data. For CCF, this report will guide our priorities, strategies, investments, and partnerships over the next quarter-century, and we hope it will spark further conversation and action with our friends and neighbors in the Southern Lowcountry.

Executive Summary Read the Full Report

Purpose

  • This report serves as a 25-year and four-county community vision with—not only for—our community. Specifically, the process and results have allowed CCF to:

    1. Listen and learn as the community shares visions for 2050.
    2. Identify findings across the four counties or that are unique to certain counties.
    3. Create a shared vision, a road map to guide CCF’s priorities and partnerships with the community.
    4. Provide CCF’s current and future partners with a resource that assesses the validity of a generational, regional, cross-sector, and transformational vision for greater impact.
21
Listening sessions
15
Interviews
6
Town Hall meetings with 27 community 
leaders
496
Online survey respondents

Questions

  • This report is rooted in three exploratory questions posed to our community.

    • “What are your hopes and dreams for your community over the next 25 years?”
    • “Now, imagine it is the year 2050, and your hopes and dreams all came true. What evidence can you share to prove that it came true?”
    • “Can you list people and/or institutions in your community who you trust and who you believe would help us pursue our community vision for the next 25 years?”

People in each of the four counties think they face unique situations, but they’re actually similar or connected. The situations just get more intense in poorer and rural counties... But it’s in every county’s interest to think regionally.

Beaufort County Resident

We need to get proximate. It’s a dopamine hit. We need it. We need to sit, share, and be together.

Jasper County Resident

I’m a mom. In 25 years, my kids—now 7 and 10—will be grown. I want them to still live in a magical place. We live in a beautiful place we feel… So much of the world has lost its beauty, soul, land… and it’s just ‘Anywhere, USA’… It’s more than just protecting dirt. It’s protecting culture, helping families keep their land, the Gullah Geechee community.

Beaufort County Resident

We have a lack of trust in intuitions, in the political process, in community-based efforts, in the school systems, in an at- large city council.

Colleton County Resident

How to get there requires teamwork and collaboration. No one has enough resources to do it alone… [We need] more collaboration and less fight-for-my-piece-of-the-pie.

Hampton County Resident

Findings

  • This report serves as a 25-year and four-county community vision with—not only for—our community. Specifically, the process and results have allowed CCF to:

    1. Start with strengths. Many residents easily listed problems and concerns. However, when they started focusing on strengths, goals, and vision, they gained more hope and felt more capable. We can identify better solutions, plans, resources, and partners when we leverage our strengths to solve our problems.
    2. Build bridges. Many residents quickly shared that they view the four-county region of the Southern Lowcountry as a diverse area  composed of separate and unique communities. However, they also shared surprisingly common responses for a vision. We can build bridges—literally and metaphorically—because we may have more in common than we realize.
    3. Go big, wisely. To have a thriving community by 2050, we need to begin with a big and bold vision in 2025. We know the stakes are too high for small plans, and inaction is the biggest risk.
    4. Use slingshots, not moonshots. To achieve big goals by 2050, we should take the necessary time to plan, partner, and pursue a limited number of promising opportunities that can create the greatest impact (slingshotting). No matter how tempting and well-intentioned, we should avoid spreading ourselves too thin with too many ambitious projects that are not set up for success (moonshotting).
Will you Join Us?

Will you Join Us?

This is only the beginning. There is a lot of work ahead, 
and the next generation is counting on us. So, let’s roll up our sleeves to get started.

Executive Summary Read the Full Report