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Strategic Plans in the Nonprofit World (Carpe Diem)

Here is a practical summary of “Strategic Plans in the Nonprofit World”

  • Personal Reflection: I reflect on the importance of strategic planning, triggered by a tragic train accident.
  • Connection Between Purpose & Action: Success is shaped by what you do today to reach your longer-term goals. A clear strategic plan helps align day-to-day tasks with the long-term vision.
  • Vision Importance: A strong organizational vision is aspirational, inspirational, and concrete. It must guide everyone in the organization and be backed by a clear, actionable plan.
  • Common Strategic Planning Pitfalls:
    • Too many priorities that dilute focus.
    • Disconnection between plan creation and execution.
    • Rigidity in methods, failing to adapt and abandon ineffective activities.
  • Better Strategic Plan Model:
    • Focus on one primary priority and no more than three key areas.
    • Align strategies with budget and resource allocation.
    • Conduct annual evaluations to ensure effectiveness and reallocate resources as needed.
  • Core Values: Supporting the strategic plan, Core Values shape organizational culture and decision-making, empowering employees to align their daily actions with the vision.
  • Conclusion: A successful strategic plan is clear, simple, and inspirational. It serves as both a practical tool and a motivational guide, unlocking the organization’s potential to achieve its long-term goals.

Strategic Plans in the Nonprofit World (Carpe Diem)Make it Count (looking back)

A version of this article was written in the spring of 2015, shortly after returning to New York having conducted a series of organizational alignment workshops with the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.

I was on the 7:00 PM train out of Washington on Tuesday, May 12th. The 7:10 PM train, which could just as easily have been mine, derailed, tragically killing seven and injuring scores of others. For details on one of the worst rail accidents in recent decades, see the New York Times Magazine article, The Wreck of Amtrak 188.

On hearing the news that my team and I were unharmed, I got an email from the museum director with the sign-off “carpe diem.”

Indeed.

My proximity to such a devastating event created a space to think about the big picture. About life, but also about work—which is undeniably a huge chunk of “life”—and the aspirations we set for ourselves in the work that we do.

What are you doing today that connects to your envisioned ten-year achievements?

Earlier that day, during the organizational alignment workshops, I had asked participants this question: “When you look back ten years from now, what do you want to say that you have been able to achieve as an organization?”

Those 10 years have since passed and they have accomplished much, including a brand and reputation transformation, and more recently, a massive top-to-bottom renovation. The National Museum of Women in the Arts spent these ten years with a strategic focus on what was most important. It has been an honor to work alongside them and to see the strategic vision set down then live so vibrantly now.

So, I pose the same question to you and your nonprofit or your business: “What are you doing today that connects to your envisioned ten-year achievements?”

For most organizations, this should not be a rhetorical question. It is, in fact, an urgent one, often lost in the whirlwind of day-to-day tasks. A strategic plan is a tool designed to help you step out of that whirlwind, keeping focus on what is truly important. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, there are an organization’s first priorities, and then there is everything else that doesn’t get done.

There are an organization’s first priorities, and then there is everything else that doesn’t get done.

Vision (looking ahead)

Individual and organizational destinies are intimately intertwined. Most of us dedicate the bulk of our waking lives contributing to the mission of the organization we work for. This makes an organization’s purpose critically important—it should be deliberate, clear, and understood by all who contribute to it.

A strategic plan plays a key role in clarifying that purpose, ensuring that everyone within the organization not only knows what it is but actively supports it.

Individual and organizational destiny are intimately intertwined.

There is a certain magic in a well-defined vision—one that articulates the organization’s purpose and the future it seeks to create. There’s a reason we call it “vision”. It is necessary to see what you seek to achieve. Envisioning something makes it possible; it does not make it happen, but it does open a kind of rift in the future—a possibility that would otherwise be closed.

Whatever you set out to achieve, whatever your organizational vision, it should be both aspirational and inspirational. It should also be true. By true, I mean that it is backed up by a concrete plan and by actions. It should encourage behaviors that are voluntary, heartfelt, and productive, driving results aligned with the vision.

A Strategic Plan

The above is all arguably just an emphatic case for a good strategic plan.

While the aspirational and inspirational elements may seem intangible, they are, in fact, essential to its success.

The prioritized actions—laid out in your strategic plan—make possible the achievements you want to be able to look back on with satisfaction. Your strategic plan should guide the means by which you seize the day, and with that day in hand, the next, and eventually all the rest.

A strategic plan is best when it is simple, clear, useful and inspirational. It is a plan for the achievement of your vision.

Pitfalls Found in Many Nonprofit Strategic Plans

Here are some pitfalls we commonly see in strategic plans:

  • Too many priorities. It is so easy to put too much in a strategic plan. It is critical therefore to remember that the first element of a good plan is what you are not going to do. If your strategic plan does not help you with the essential task of abandonment, it easily devolves into a laundry list.
  • Too much separation between the plan and its execution. The execution is the plan. There should not be any separation between the planners and executors for the plan. The plan’s execution is everyone’s responsibility.
  • Excessive rigidity in how the vision is achieved. The strategic plan is only valuable if it can produce results. Whatever the plan lays out—on whatever timeline—should be rigorously assessed to see what parts are working and what parts are not. Any aspect of the plan that is not exceeding expectations—measured by real world results—must be jettisoned and replaced with other viable means to further the work. This systematic abandonment of the ineffective is essential for a strategic plan to succeed. The danger of a strategic plan is that it can serve to protect the “good idea” that does not yield results. This is a grave misapplication of a strategic plan.

A Better Model for a Nonprofit Strategic Plan

  • One key strategic priority that must be achieved in the timeframe set by the plan. This priority should be described simply, clearly, and be universally understood within the organization.
  • No more than three key areas of strategic focus. Having more than three will result in low awareness of the strategic priorities and poor results.
  • Clear and meaningful connections between each strategic priority and the organizational budget as well as team resource allocation. All functional units should be able to align their contributions to the strategic focus areas and be able to show how they will contribute to the key strategic priority.
  • A rigorous annual evaluation of all strategic initiatives and supporting activities. If an activity isn’t getting the expected results, it should be analyzed, and then overhauled or entirely replaced with a new approach.
  • Avoid seeking to fix low performing activities. It’s far better to drop any under performing activities and reallocate those resources to try something else.

Drop any under performing activities and reallocate those resources to try something else.

A strategic plan is best when it is simple, clear, useful, and inspirational. It is a plan for the achievement of your vision. It is a plan that lays out your “how” for all to see and for all to use in their shared effort to make your organizational vision real. It is not the many things you could do, but the few critically important things that you must do to achieve your goals.

A strategic plan should also encapsulate the shared vision of your organization and, as such, it should be held in high esteem by all of your employees and stakeholders.

A strategic plan should help to motivate and inspire creative contributions from every employee and every stakeholder in the organization.

If no one is referencing and actively using your strategic plan in decision making, then you don’t have a strategic plan. What you have is a strategic door stop and it is probably holding the door closed. (See “Pitfalls” above.)

Core Values

Supporting and enhancing your strategic plan are your organizational Core Values. These values are the essential building blocks of your organizational culture, the inviolable guardrails all members of the team can rely on to help them make difficult decisions autonomously.

It is through your employees that your institutional vision comes alive, it is they that shape it through their day-to-day choices, actions and behavior.

A culture, when supported by well-defined and universally understood Core Values, can unlock the autonomous creativity of employees and harness it for the benefit of all. It is through your employees and stakeholders that your institutional vision comes alive, it is they who shape it through their day-to-day choices, actions, and behavior.

Just imagine if it were your strategic plan with its clear statement of purpose and priorities that came to people’s minds and lips when asked, “Why did you come to work today?”

Imagine that.

This is not fantasy. It’s best practice.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” —Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Your strategic plan—if it is concise, actionable, and supported by the whole organization—gives you the key to unlock the steps you need to take today to advance toward your vision, to find the path to unlock the additional steps you need to take tomorrow, and to make the next ten years of your organizational toil something you will be able to look back on with pride. You can do much with a strategic plan if it is both a practical tool and an inspiration.

What are you waiting for?

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