Basic Strategic Planning for Nonprofits

Introduction

Strategic planning is the process used to make a plan for a nonprofit or other organization over the next few years. It is a living document that helps steer the ship and ensure the organization continues to carry out its mission.

Strategic planning models and phases abound, this is just one example of a model of strategic planning that your Board can use. The OnStrategy model includes 4 components:

• Determine Position
• Develop Strategy
• Build the Plan
• Manage Performance

Determine Position

Determine the Position includes identifying the issues that you need to focus on. What are the risks and opportunities your organization is facing right now? You also need to collect information about your clients, the state of the market and other relevant information that will help you plan.

Develop Strategy

Next, developing strategy involves reviewing the organization’s mission, vision and values. What is the purpose of the organization, has it changed since your last strategic plan? What are your core beliefs (your values), and what would the world look like if your organization succeeded in its goal (its vision)? These all help you set the strategy your organization will follow.

It is important to identify your competitive advantages. What makes your organization different from the others in your industry, in your sector, in your area? This will help you later when it comes time to determine your organization’s messaging. If you don’t know your value proposition, your messaging will be muddied and this will make it more difficult for your organization to be successful.

Once you have done these things, you will develop objectives and set out strategies to help you meet those. Financial forecasting may also be part of this process.

Building the Plan

Building your strategic plan involves taking the big and long-term goals and setting smaller objectives and goals to help you on the road-map. For example, your major objectives will be set out over the next 3 years (in many strategic plans), but you need to identify goals for the next 3, 6, and 12 months – and then for the 12, 18, 24 and 36 months on the way to the next strategic plan.

You may select Key Performance Indicators that you can refer to on a regular basis (perhaps even at each monthly meeting) to know if you are on track. These could include:

• Monthly Donations
• Number of Service Users
• Retention Rate of Volunteers

You will also need to create or review the budget in order to make sure the organization has the money they need to work on these goals.

Manage Performance

Finally, the last item in the strategic planning process is Manage Performance. This involves setting a schedule so that you understand when key events will be taking place and when milestones will be met. Your KPIs might be added to each agenda. You may wish to implement a quarterly review to make sure the Executive Director is still on track to meet these goals.

Finally, a one-year review will let you see what goals you have achieved and what goals remain to be completed.

Conclusion

Have you ever facilitated a strategic planning session, what was it like?