There are many approaches to strategic planning and no single way to plan. Completing a quality strategic plan requires time, energy, and resources. Evaluate your process goals, desired pace, and current organizational workload as well as your nonprofit’s stage of development, and scale your process accordingly. Be honest about what is required. You may need to advocate for the value of strategic planning to gain buy-in across the organization and to set aside required resources.
Understanding your nonprofit’s history provides relevant context and grounds the process in what came before as a starting place for what comes next. A short narrative (1-2 pages) or timeline of key organizational milestones that traces how you arrived at the current moment can be provided as a pre-read before planning sessions, included in your final plan as an appendix, and/or shared externally on your website.
Build on any existing plan elements, and identify key questions facing your nonprofit. If you have a prior strategic plan, assess your progress and accomplishments. Think about what you want to carry forward and what needs to be let go. During the Prepare stage, hold initial discussions to get the challenging issues and hard questions out at the start. As you shape and launch your process, do not avoid the hard questions that need to be addressed, only to have the questions pop up later.
Planning is an opportunity for evolution. Your nonprofit’s evolution may require shifts in organizational culture, decision-making practices, or organizational structure and staffing. You may feel the need to wait until your strategic plan is complete to try new ways of working together. Instead of waiting, think about how you can design a strategic planning process that reflects the nonprofit you aspire to evolve into and creates space for experimentation and learning.
Nonprofit Lifecycle
Organizations have lifecycles or stages of development, like any living thing, so right-size your strategic planning process for where your nonprofit is now. Your nonprofit may be newly created, experiencing growth, reaching a plateau, or nearing an end. Your work and focus areas will change depending on where your nonprofit is in its lifecycle and what is happening around the organization. Also, whether your organization has staff or is an all-volunteer endeavor will influence your strategic planning process.