In my experience at
various nonprofits, strategic planning has been an elusive concept, a “buzz
word” organizations threw around without much action. Recently, I had the
opportunity to participate in the strategic planning process at Madison
Nonprofit*. Madison Nonprofit’s approach to strategic planning included many of
the crucial elements, but they have work to do in executing the full cycle of
strategic planning.
1. Review
Mission
The
9-month strategic planning process at Madison Nonprofit
began with a review of the organization’s mission, a crucial first step (Brown).
The mission is an organization’s reason for existence and serves as a constant reference
point throughout every stage of strategic planning and all subsequent decision
making (United Way; Brown). Though Madison Nonprofit opted not to alter its existing
mission, the mission did continue to serve as a cornerstone to each additional
step in the process.
2. Situational Assessment
Additionally,
Madison Nonprofit began its strategic planning with several approaches to
assess the organizational, or internal, environment, as well as the external
environment. For instance, Madison Nonprofit included staff of all levels and
stakeholders, engaging them in an organizational retreat, interviews and focus
groups, and program mapping activities to identify organizational strengths and
weaknesses, as well as community needs and external trends.
Considering
both the external and internal environment is a crucial step in strategic planning
(Brown). Often, organizations jump to considering the external environment without
considering the internal state of the organization. However, internal human,
financial, technological, and structural capacity are key components to organization
effectiveness and impact (United Way). These internal conditions should be
assessed in addition to the external environment’s social, economic, and political
states or trends (United Way). In engaging external and internal stakeholders,
Madison Nonprofit set itself up well to analyze internally and externally.
Additionally, it maintained a balanced view and approached identifying any
organizational weaknesses or external threats as an opportunity to explore how
to build strengths and improve performance (Bryson).
3. Identify
Strategic Issues & 4. Formulate Strategies
Using
information garnered from the situational assessments, Madison Nonprofit
identified critical questions and challenges affecting the organization’s mission,
service and stakeholders; these are defined as strategic issues (Bryson).
Identifying strategic issues helps encourage an organization to think
differently “so that knowledge
exploration, development, and learning might occur” (Bryson, 252). Madison Nonprofit identified four
strategic issues -- family and community engagement, building a sustainable
business model, equity and inclusion, staff development and retention – and then
created sub-committees to learn more and identify strategic issues within each
area. To address strategic issues, each sub-committee created strategies and
tasks to address each strategic issue. These were compiled into a “Strategic
Plan” which was approved and adopted by the Board.
5. Create
Implementation Plan & 6. Evaluation
Madison
Nonprofit effectively performed each of the above steps, but then mistakenly
viewed the strategic process as complete. Each key strategic issue had several
sub-goals, and many sub-tasks for each goal. Yet, Madison Nonprofit did not prioritize
the many tasks (such as by assessing an issue’s probability and impact), create
a plan for implementation, nor include a plan to evaluate, crucial steps to
strategic planning (United Way; Bryson). Evaluation is critical and informs
each step of the strategic planning process, from helping the organization
identify strengths and weaknesses to monitoring progress, outputs, and outcomes
(Bryson).
Benefits of Strategic Planning
By engaging in
strategic planning, Madison Nonprofit gained some benefits of strategic
planning including integrating perspectives from multiple stakeholders and
creating goals to help the organization move forward (Brown). Additionally,
strategic planning helped align the organization, providing an opportunity to
discuss its purpose and helping to set its future course (Bryson). Overall, strategic planning helps an
organization be more proactive and forward-thinking. To fully realize these
benefits, Madison Nonprofit must keep strategic thinking on the forefront of its
mind and continue to review and re-evaluate the three-year plan it created.
Creating more clear plans for implementation and evaluation will complete the
work they have done so far and foster strategic planning’s ability to “make
hope reasonable” (Bryson).
*name has been changed to preserve the anonymity of
the organization
References:
Brown, William M. The
Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. Ch 8:
Strategic Management. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
Bryson, John. The
Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. Ch 9:
Strategic Planning and the Strategy Change Cycle. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
United Way of Dane
County. Strategic Planning Process.
