Sustainability Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and PESTEL Analysis for Special District Revenue Generation

This study addresses the ability of the client organization to create new programming that is separate from its general fund and is revenue-neutral because the client organization is a conservation district operating under the California Water Code Division 21 Sections 74000-76501. The constraint of California Proposition 13’s property tax rate increases makes it difficult for the client organization to fund new programming. To overcome these limitations, the multiple streams framework (MSF) and the s/SWOT and PESTEL frameworks were used to analyze the role of policy entrepreneurs and address potential limitations in the client organization’s creation of new programming, ensuring sustainability and effectiveness to expand services by operating a nursery selling drought-tolerant plants to the public. Interviews, surveys, and document analysis were conducted to yield insight into the client organization’s sustainable and effective expansion of services, notably the establishment of drought-tolerant nurseries, to answer three guiding questions. By utilizing the MSF and the sSWOT/PESTEL analysis, the study identifies the challenges and opportunities associated with policy entrepreneurship and the potential influence on the environmental section of the PESTEL analysis. The professional administrative study had the potential to create a positive social change by addressing the meaningful gap in the organization’s understanding of expanding its programming services of implementing a drought-tolerant nursery in the client organization’s service area.