Building a Strong Strategic Plan
Strategic Planning. Phew. It can be exhausting, boring, mind-bending, and, ultimately, entirely transformative if you do it right.
But what does it mean to "do it right"?
Hire an external consultant to facilitate the process.
Okay, that sounds a little self-serving, I know. And you can do it internally, but it is a lot more difficult (and potentially less effective). Here's why it can help immensely for an outsider to do it:
Most important -- they're not in the day-to-day operations or emotionally tied to the process and the outcome. That means that they can address elephants in the room and facilitate existential conversations in a way that would be difficult to impossible for an insider to do.
They free-up your time. The time of the CEO, staff, and board are your organization's most precious (and sometimes most expensive) resource. If someone else is organizing and managing the process, the team is freed-up to do the substantive pieces (as well as their ongoing day job). This is true even if someone(s) on your staff or board has a ton of experience in strategic planning -- that doesn't mean they have the time (nor the neutral perspective).
Caveat: If you're rounding out a relatively short strategic plan (say 3 years), and that process involved major transformation so that now you're just looking to continue the growth trend, it might be fine (especially for smaller nonprofits) to spare your budget and create the plan internally.
How do you choose the consultant?
There are so many great (and not so great) consultants out there whose services include building strategic plans. Some things to look for:
They don't build the plan for you. They facilitate the process. While it may seem like it would really free up everyone's time for a consultant(cy) to do it all for you (with your input), ultimately, that would lead to a less effective outcome. You need buy-in from everyone, blood-sweat-and-tears put into the process, a real feeling of excitement and accomplishment from the board and staff, and deep authenticity in the final product . . . . you can't get that if someone else builds the plan for you. (Templates are great as a starting point, but the content needs to come from inside the house).
You trust them. This is a big one. You need to trust that they'll honor your organization's values and center your mission. That they'll test and expand your boundaries and question the status quo. That they'll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. That they're not trying to push a pre-packaged, boxed product on you. That they'll hold safe emotional space for the inevitable tough conversations and will hold everything they learn about your organization and your team in confidence. Nothing in assessing trust is foolproof, but homework that could help: bring a few staff and board members together to talk to the consultant(s) before you hire them; check out their social media presence to get a feel for their style, philosophy, and values; talk to others who have worked with them (either as a client or a former colleague).
Include everyone.
I get it. Drafting by committee is torture. So putting pen to paper can be done by a small group. But all of the conversations happening around what goes into the plan need to include along the way, in some capacity, the entire board and staff, external partners, donors and sponsors, and program beneficiaries. Otherwise, again, you risk not having the buy-in you need to realize the goals in the plan, and you risk creating a plan that doesn't actually work or really serve the mission.
The board and CEO together, working with the consultant, need to drive the process. The board owns the plan, and the CEO has their constant pulse on the latest trends and best practices as well as what is operationally possible. Neither one of those parties should be driving the process without the other.
Have the tough conversations.
A truly transformative, next level strategic plan involves having deep existential conversations. Do our mission, vision, and values still meet our raison d'etre in 2024? Are there long-running programs that need a re-think? Are we focusing too much on new and shiny instead of deepening what is already working?
And I cannot emphasize this enough . . . . constantly check-in on whether the plan you're building matches the actual capacity (in budget, staffing, etc.) that you have. And always, always, always . . . . (did I mention "always"?) . . . . put priority on increasing staff pay and benefits to competitive levels (that push beyond unfairly depressed nonprofit pay in most places) OVER shiny, new goals.
Heck, if you have to reduce ambition in the new strategic plan to pay your staff what they truly deserve, then absolutely do it.
In the end, you'll build a stronger foundation for growth. Just make sure that a huge part of the plan is whole-team, strong engagement in fundraising.
Build-in accountability.
Before you finalize the strategic plan:
Frame out the first year's annual operation plan to meet the first year goals -- make sure it's even possible.
The board owns the plan (and should vote on the final version). Create a separate but connected Board Action Plan that indicates what the board's role will specifically be each year in bringing the goals to fruition, with specific tactics and deadlined deliverables.
Create a scorecard and scoring process to measure how you're doing against the goals of the plan, and include a means of adjusting the plan as opportunities and circumstances change. A strategic plan should be a guide, not a prescription. (The scorecard, btw, should not be voted upon -- just discussed -- and it should be used to help figure out where more investment is needed, not to "grade" the staff.)
Done is better than perfect.
Yes, the board is voting on the final product, but it shouldn't be nitpicking every minute detail and wording. Keep the plan simple -- stick to 30,000 ft goals that are achievable but still aiming for growth. Too many goals or too-detailed goals makes it really hard to see the forest for the trees and know what to prioritize when.
Make the plan about goals and milestones, not tactics. Track board tactics (i.e., what the board specifically will be doing to ensure success) in the above-mentioned Board Action Plan and operational tactics in the CEO+staff-created Annual Operational Plans. Make it straightforward to connect the Board Action Plan and Annual Operational Plan to the Strategic Plan (i.e., avoid having numerous, nested sub-goals in the Strategic Plan).
Make the plan cover 3-5 years. Fewer than that doesn't allow for full strategy and more than that isn't realistic as circumstances and opportunities change. (Fewer than that is also too exhausting -- this is an intense process).
Overall, don't get bogged down in detail and perfection. Do your best, keep it simple, and move forward.
Nothing is more draining to board and staff morale, productivity, and passion for the mission than a weedsy, too drawn-out exercise in perfectionism.
