STRATEGIC PLANNING
Why do strategic planning?
Strategic planning assumes that an organization must be responsive to a dynamic, changing environment. Ask any nonprofit and they will say that the environment is indeed changeable, often in unpredictable ways. Strategic planning, then, stresses the importance of making decisions that will ensure the organization's ability to successfully respond to changes in the environment.
Benefits of strategic planning
Christine knows that successful strategic planning, based on an inclusive, participatory process in which board and staff take on a shared ownership, is a key part of effective management. The strategic planning process requires a commitment of time, effort, and resources from a nonprofit organization or a foundation. The payoff is that creating and following a strategic plan brings these benefits:
- Enables a nonprofit organization to determine the best approaches to implementing its mission, build on its assets, recognize its weaknesses, and anticipate any problems that may arise.
- Provides guidance and direction for the staff and a tool for the board to hold the organization accountable to fulfilling its mission.
- Creates a framework within which priorities can be set and a coherent focus given to program implementation.
- Offers stakeholders, funders, and consumers an opportunity to know, and therefore more effectively support, the mission of the organization.
Assessing, planning, implementing
Planning requires that an organization knows where it is starting. To identify internal assets and weaknesses, Christine begins the process with an organizational assessment and a board of directors assessment. Combined with an external environment assessment, these tools are the foundation upon which the strategic plan is built.
A strategic plan only leads to action and change if it is implemented, so an essential component of Christine's approach to strategic planning is working with the organization to ensure the execution of the plan.
Christine will custom design a full-day strategic planning retreat that clarifies your organization's mission, vision, and values; identifies critical issues; and creates achievable goals and objectives. In addition to facilitating the retreat, she will provide coaching throughout the creation and implementation of your strategic plan.
