“The best way to predict the future is to create it” ― Peter Drucker
Strategic Planning For Nonprofits
Our strategic planning services build your organization’s capacity to focus resources on what is most important, and to proactively adapt to change. In the strategic planning process, we work with you to anticipate, plan and create your organization's future. Together, we identify core capabilities for the organization to build so as to strengthen leaders' abilities to seize opportunities, overcome obstacles, and respond to a changing environment.
Together we create an intentional roadmap for an organization’s future by clarifying who they are, identifying their essential priorities, and aligning their board, staff, and the communities they serve.
Our Approach to Strategic Planning
The status quo is not an option. Nonprofit leaders need a guiding strategy, a roadmap, that helps them anticipate change and focus resources on what is most important. Our strategic planning process identifies critical obstacles to achieving a nonprofit’s mission and develops a comprehensive set of coordinated actions that work together to overcome these obstacles and advance the organization’s mission.
Our strategic plans identify high-priority strategic directions and goals, actions for meeting those goals, and indicators for measuring success. They are adaptable plans that typically look out 3-5 years.
Once a nonprofit’s strategic directions and high-priority goals are clearly defined, its resources can be allocated more efficiently. And just as important, its leaders’ vision of the future is clarified, the staff and board team share a more solid purpose and direction, and partners and constituents become more engaged. With a clear picture of its desired future, the organization is in a strong position to bring about that future and navigate expected and unexpected obstacles. Our strategic planning processes are centered in antiracism and intersectionality, allowing our collaborative work to advance toward equity and with equity.
Elements of our strategic planning processes include:
Clarifying your organization’s mission, vision, values, and theory of change, which ground its identity and pull the organization forward, guiding all subsequent decisions.
Deepening engagement among staff, board members, volunteers, partners, program participants, donors, and other stakeholders while building a shared understanding of who the organization is and where it is going.
Anticipating upcoming challenges by examining your organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, scanning its external environment, preparing for possible future scenarios, and identifying and troubleshooting obstacles.
Creating a plan for action including a strategic framework with priorities, goals, and strategies, and a decision matrix to guide your day-to-day decisions.
Providing a fundraising and marketing document to use with funders and other constituents that articulate your organization’s aspirations and needs for support.
Sample Projects
Read case studies about our strategic planning projects.
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