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Featured Article
Your Essential Planning Checklist
There is only one reason not to engage in strategic planning and that is when the conditions for successful planning are not in place. So what does that mean? What are those conditions? Here's a list of five conditions every organization will want to make sure it has in place before it engages in its planning:
1. Organizational capacity and motivation to monitor and implement the plan, and to hold itself accountable for the outcomes.
There's no sense in spending the time and effort to create a plan only to have it sit on a shelf. If that's what has happened in the past, ask yourselves how this year is going to be different. Why must this year be different? The executive director is surely accountable to the board for the outcomes; however, the board must never forget that it is, in the final analysis, accountable to the organization's donors and constitutents.
2. Willingness to take on the organization's "sacred cows." The best strategic planning process challenges everyone to think about how the organization can use its resources (time, talent, money) most effectively to impact and advance the mission; for this process to soar, its participants must be invited, if not encouraged, to respectfully challenge every aspect of the organization.
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Greetings!
 Every nonprofit organization needs a solid plan aligned with its mission and grounded in its resources. Does your organization have its 2010 plan in place? Is it working for you?
Strategic planning gives an organization an opportunity to do its best thinking about how to most effectively and efficiently use its precious--and often limited--resources (time, talent, money) to impact and advance its mission. Through the goal-setting process, an organization defines success; through the implementation process, it holds itself accountable to those who invest in it.
In today's world, the planning process is more important than ever; that's why I'm publishing this special newsletter on the singular topic of strategic planning. I hope you'll enjoy the three articles that follow.
If you want more information on the topic, give me a call (573.886.8922). I love strategic planning and am always glad to be of help! |
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Starting With the End in Sight 
It is through the strategic planning process that the board, in collaboration with the staff, sets the organization's vision. Without this setting and resetting of the organization's vision, the organization often finds that it has drifted from its mission, wasted the valuable resources entrusted to it, and failed to meet the real needs of its constituents.
So where to begin? With strategic planning, the end is a great place to start.
How does your organization define success? What does success look like? Knowing the definition of success for your organization is essential to writing an effective strategic plan. Read more. |
Listen Up: You Have a Lot to Learn
The Benefits of Interviewing Your Stakeholders
Nonprofit organizations do amazing work. They are continually asked to do more with less and are rarely given the credit they deserve for making miracles happen. They move at the speed of light -- and then strategic planning happens.
Once a year or perhaps every few years, nonprofit organizations slow down just long enough to take a look at themselves. And that's when the opportunity presents itself; that's when the organization has the opportunity to do what it's not permitted to do during the rest of the year by virtue of its day-to-day pace. It is at this moment, that the board and staff members have this delicious opportunity not only to listen to each other, but also to the organization's external stakeholders.
As a consultant who interviews stakeholders about the hopes, fears, views, and visions they have for organizations they care so passionately about, I can tell you this is one of the most powerful tools that exists for moving an organization forward. |
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All the best,
Carolyn Sullivan
New Chapter Coaching, LLC
573.886.8922
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