A strategic plan is a road map that guides everyone in your organization – from the board of directors to executive leadership and management to front-line staff and volunteers – along the same path. When everyone in your organization understands where the organization is going and their role in helping the organization get there, you will move forward more cohesively, maximize your resources, minimize frustrations and miscommunications, and last but not least, achieve your goals and make this world a better place to live in.
Here are a few reasons why a strategic plan is critical to helping your organization achieve the change you want to see in the world:
A strategic plan provides clear direction. For most of us working towards the social good, time and money are limited. A solid strategic plan outlines the priorities and goals for your organization over the next three to five years. This gives your organization’s staff, board, and stakeholders a clear roadmap to follow. The shared vision, clear roles, defined accountability, and focused direction ensures everyone’s efforts are aligned and everyone in your organization is swimming in the same direction. This maximizes time, communication, and collaboration while preventing different departments or initiatives within the organization from inadvertently competing against each other and the organization’s resources.
A strategic plan amplifies impact. No organization is the same. Your strategic plan will focus on your organization’s unique resources and strengths to achieve your highest priorities, and will be specific to your organization and community. Your strategic plan will serve as a guide in helping everyone connected to the organization focus on the most pressing issues and move beyond putting out fires and bumping up against obstacles to focus on proactive strategies and systems change. Your strategic plan will define specific and measurable qualitative and quantitative goals and outcomes that are informed by your most pressing priorities. By aligning your organization’s resources around these priorities, you will be able to track and share your progress and impact, and in return generate more support for your work.
A strategic plan builds shared leadership and informs realistic and sustainable goals. A thoughtful strategic plan integrates your highest priorities, the resources your organization has to realistically accomplish them, and your organization’s values and culture. A strategic plan that centers the voices and lived experiences of those closest to the work and those most impacted by the issue your organization aims to address will ground your strategic plan in the realities, hopes, and values of the community you serve. This facilitates shared leadership, learning, and a sustainable partnership model over a limited and often disempowering charity approach.
A strategic plan puts values into action. Your strategic plan provides a framework or compass for translating your organization’s mission and values into concrete actions*, decisions, and day-to-day operations. This informs how you deliver and resource programming, partnerships, and internal policies and systems in alignment with your organization’s mission, vision, values, and culture. It will help you identify goals that are realistic and sustainable, preventing staff burnout and a loss of institutional knowledge, relationships, and partnerships that drain resources and threaten your progress and impact.
A strategic plan streamlines decision-making and improves change management. No matter what your strategic plan says on paper, you will face challenges and setbacks. You will also encounter emerging opportunities, breakthroughs, and bright spots! A strategic plan helps anticipate, prepare for, and evaluate challenges and opportunities. It will also define and guide transparent and aligned decision-making, allowing for stronger and more effective change management when you need to pivot. A strategic plan will help your organization know when to say yes, and sometimes more importantly, know when to say no when facing the lure of a shiny new object, but one that doesn’t align with your vision, mission, values, goals, or resources. It will also help your organization and stakeholders learn together, empowering you to have an even greater impact and avoid making the same mistakes over again that cost time, money, and relationships.
At Just Possibilities, we are passionate about guiding organizations in putting their values into action at every level of their work, from strategic plans to internal policies, service delivery, community engagement, and day-to-day decision-making. We work with organizations dedicated to the social good in their values and equity-based strategic planning, organizational assessments and recommendations, values decision-making rubrics or scorecards*, and leadership and change management efforts.
If you are thinking about refining your organization’s current strategic plan, beginning a new one, or building one for the first time, please reach out. Just Possibilities offers a one-hour, no-cost call that listens to your strategic planning challenges and provides tips and probing questions for getting started. You can learn more or schedule a free consultation call by visiting www.justpossibilities.com
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