Strategic Planning
Building Organizational Capacity for the Non Profit
Strategic Planning is the means of envisioning your non profit future and asking these three basic questions:
- Where have we been?
- Where are we now?
- Where do we want to go?
Strategic Planning emphasizes the process in addition to the end product and includes your mission, vision, creativity, values and organizational culture.
Strategic Planning is a tool for transforming your mode of functioning from being reactive to pro-active. The future is anticipated and opportunities utilized through Strategic Planning. Strategic Planning is future-based, led by creative thinking. An important benefit of the process is team building that is nurtured by an inclusive process.
Benefits of Strategic Planning:
- Ignite ingenuity and new approaches
- Greater investment of volunteers, community, funders and partners
- Frame a common vision for your non profit
- Crystallize non profit belief and values
- Visualize strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
- Context for daily actions and decisions
- Bring new people onto the board
- Create and update brand identity items
It gives you a blue print to follow. A strategic plan is an excellent marketing piece for funders and community partners as well as a road map for your organization’s growth.
Planning to Plan – deciding to undertake the Strategic Planning process, board of trustees’ approval and buy in, leadership selected, consultant hired
Needs Assessment – evaluating the present situation both internally and externally, using reliable measuring tools, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Mission – clear, concise, inspirational statement of the dream that defines the non profit.
Vision – visualization of what the non profit can be, how you are going to change the neighborhood, the community, or the world.
Strategy – how are you going to implement the mission and build your vision, goals/objectives: specific timetables, accountability accomplishments and measurable outcomes to fulfill the mission and vision.
Plan – pragmatic action plan, presented both internally and externally to exhibit the highlighted results from the Strategic Planning process.