no strategic errors

This is a safe enough place that I can tell you a secret: I love strategic plans! The day-to-day of running an organization rarely makes room for dreaming. But a strategic plan can offer that and much more. People dislike strategic plans for the same reason they don't like vegetables. Their opposition melts away when they try one that's well-prepared and not overcooked. When done well, strategic plans help an organization prepare for their future. They connect bold visions to realistic plans for making them come true. They help staff and supporters understand where the org is going and what we all can do to help get them there.

When done well, strategic plans are something people should look forward to. They should understand it even if they didn't work on it themselves. And they shouldn't feel like extra or useless work. Early this year I attended NAWA's training on strategic planning in nonprofits (SPiN). I think their framework is easy for most nonprofits to use and understand. The SPiN framework organizes the process into six steps and three phases.

Phase 1: Organize. Convene your strategic planning team and agree on the process to create a plan. Identify your constituents and stakeholders, then gather feedback from them. Assess your internal strategy, advantages, and financial situation.

Phase 2: Imagine. Sift through the information you gathered from your conversations with constituents. Develop or update your mission, vision, and values that lay out the direction you want to go. Use these to agree on the activities and new efforts the organization should focus on.

Phase 3: Launch. Review the completed draft plan, make tweaks as needed, and approve it. Talk about how to track progress on the plan. Identify measures of success and how decision-makers will hold themselves accountable.

It's easy, right? The process above can take anywhere from 6-8 months for most organizations. Strategic plans are big and often complex processes. Many organizations find them to be a pain, or even a distraction from the "real" work. This means that organizations may miss out on the opportunities a good plan can present. Here are three to look out for and my ideas for doing it better.

limited constituent involvement

Constituents are a broad term that I prefer over stakeholders. This group includes people who receive your support, community members, donors, and more. People in this group often have clear ideas for how an organization can improve its work. Unfortunately, it's a hard group to reach. Many organizations cast a wide net for feedback. Others will reach out to a few partner organizations or big funders of their work. Or one might engage people too late to have a real impact on your strategic planning process.

Engaging constituents is the easiest way to break out of a leadership echo chamber. Community input may shed light on new areas for growth for an organization. It could also inspire much needed reflection on activities that need an overhaul. You may learn that a program beloved by senior leaders or longtime staff has less of an impact than they think. Without that feedback, it might be another 3-5 years before anyone even realizes it.

What if we encouraged our constituents to dream? Focus groups are great for getting people to respond to ideas we already had. An organization rooted in community can do more. Start with your mission, vision, and values. Who in your community shares your values? Who can picture your vision of a better world? Do they believe in your mission? Try breaking out of the conference room and activate people's sense of play. In the best case, information gathering could feel like the work you already do. An arts organization could center drawing, sculpture, or dance into the feedback. A kid-focused org could ask people to create things like vision boards or collages. Try to create exercises that activate many of your constituents' senses.

progress that only means growth

The artist Medium Build is my inspiration for this one. In his song Bigger, he asks:

Why do we have to be
Something bigger than we were yesterday?
Why do we have to be
Always getting better in every way?

He's right! Why do nonprofits feel that way? A lot of strategic plans have a drive to get bigger baked in from the start. Most nonprofits under capitalism must feel this way. They have to grow, dominate the industry, bring in more dollars to do more good work. We don't even ask the question: do we need to grow? In the next 3 to 5 to 10 years, is growth our only option? Is expanding operations the best thing for the health of our organization?

Growth in humans is a universal truth. But we grow a lot when we're young and then again as we emerge into adulthood. After that, most of us maintain ourselves at one size. Is growth impossible in that state? Must we spend our whole lives in a growth state, in constant optimization?

What if our dreams didn't stop at growth? Think about an organization whose goals were: stay stable. Commit to inclusivity and belonging. Better understand our complex processes. Turn around a struggling business. Support a sibling organization's growth. Improve staff morale. Going even further: who ever heard of a strategic plan where you shrink??? Even if an organization chooses to grow because it thinks that it must, that should be a choice—not the default.

a strategy that's too complicated

The strategic plan's natural habitat, the cliché goes, is in a binder on the shelf. Some strategic plans go through months of labor that we can feel on every page. Sentences are overwrought or committee'd within an inch of existence. Or the plan feels like IKEA instructions: detailed and linear, where it all has to go exactly right and why do you have a screw left over? Every team has to work at full capacity at all times, including the teams we haven't hired yet.

A strategic plan doesn't have to look impressive to be worth doing. It's much better to be accessible. That means no binders! Think about all the constituents you brought along while building your new plan. They probably want their contributions to feel like they led to something. We can do more than try dazzling them with bullshit.

How do you connect with your constituents? Many strategic plan designers are ditching the PDFs and building web pages instead. Others create strategic plan documents that their staff consult on a regular basis. They center staff and constituents as the primary readers of this plan. Try offering plans in the languages your constituents do business in. Include artwork that you hired a local designer (not AI, please not AI!) to do. Go even further and hire community members to design and write the final plan. Or skip the binder entirely: what might a strategic plan festival look like? What if your strategic plan was a video made by staff and constituents explaining it? Who says you can't?

passing past mistakes

Strategic plans shouldn't have the bad reputation they do. They can motivate people to do their work with a clear sense of purpose. A plan that's flexible and values-forward can help us respond to surprises, good or bad, that we find along the way. Most of all, a strategic plan should point a nonprofit in a direction that makes the most sense.

Strategic plans can help organizations find their place in community and lead the way forward. Design an approach that fits best with your future, not where others stopped in the past.