Convergent Strategy Partners (CSP) is a specialized advisory practice helping local governments and their partners move housing, redevelopment, and community economic development initiatives from concept to implementation.
Our work focuses on opportunities that don’t fit neatly within a single discipline—where development economics, public priorities, private investment, organizational capacity, and implementation all need to come together.
CSP brings an independent, practical perspective to that work. We help communities understand what’s feasible, compare alternatives, structure decisions, and build practical tools and implementation plans that help good ideas move forward.
CSP is led by Jessica Thomasson, whose career has crossed many of the sectors and disciplines that come together in community development.
Her experience includes affordable housing and residential development, community development and neighborhood planning, homelessness and housing stability, local government, nonprofit leadership, and senior executive leadership in state government. She holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning, with an emphasis in community economic development.
That range of experience shapes CSP’s approach today. Development projects rarely succeed based on real estate economics alone. They also require communities to navigate public priorities, financing and incentives, organizational capacity, stakeholder interests, implementation realities, and the people ultimately affected by the decisions being made.
CSP brings those perspectives together to help communities make informed decisions and move important projects forward.
Good decisions require more than intuition—but communities don’t always need complicated models or expensive systems to make better use of information.
CSP emphasizes practical analysis and tools designed around the decisions local leaders actually need to make. Depending on the work, that might include development feasibility models, scenario comparisons, public investment analysis, decision frameworks, implementation roadmaps, project trackers, or simple approaches to measuring outcomes.
The goal isn’t more analysis. It’s enough information to understand the tradeoffs, make an informed decision, and know what happens next.
Make complex information understandable Compare alternatives & tradeoffs Create tools staff can continue using Track progress & outcomes over time
Development is ultimately about more than buildings, parcels, and financial structures. It shapes neighborhoods, housing choices, local businesses, public spaces, community identity, and the everyday experience of the people who live there.
CSP’s perspective is informed by years of work in housing, community development, homelessness, human services, and public leadership. That experience reinforces the importance of considering development decisions not only through the lens of financial feasibility, but also through their impact on people and place.
The strongest projects find a workable intersection between community priorities, market realities, public investment, and long-term value. Helping communities find that intersection is at the heart of CSP’s work.