Strategic Planning
Planning for the future is one of the most important things you will do as an organization. We have guided dozens of organizations through the strategic planning process, and will help you every step of the way, from determining what you want out of the process to ensuring that all stakeholders are happy with the end result.
Aligning around your strategic planning goals and expectations
Too often, organizations jump into strategic planning without ensuring that there is a common vision for what success looks like for both the process and the end result. Before we dive into developing your future strategy, we will ensure there is agreement among the team and raise any potential differences in expectations.
Example Strategic Planning Process
We believe that just as the resulting strategy should be unique to your organization, so should the process. Rather than applying the same cookie-cutter approach to all organizations, we pull from several methodologies to create a customized approach based on our working knowledge of your organization and its needs.
Below you will find some common elements which are often included in an organizational strategic planning process, depending on your needs and preferences:
Mission and Vision
Who are we? Why does our organization exist? What is our ultimate goal? What are our deepest aspirations? What is the wider impact we aim to create? What would make us obsolete?
Theory of Change
Who is our target population? What specific outcomes do we want to enable our target population to achieve? What approach or types of work will our organization undertake, and with whom? What makes our approach uniquely powerful?
Current State and Future Trends
Current Operations: How well are we delivering on our Theory of Change today? What are our key metrics of success for achieving our impact and how well are we doing on those metrics today? Why?
External Landscape: What are the trends in the population we serve? What are the trends in the policy landscape? What other services exist for our target population? What can we learn from similar organizations?
SWOT Analysis: What are our key strengths and potential weaknesses? What opportunities could we take advantage of? What potential threats might impact our work in the future?
Strategic Priorities, Objectives, and Key Strategies
What do we want to achieve in the next 1-5 years? What is the overall direction in which we hope to take our organization? What are the specific goals and metrics by which we will track our success? What are the 3-5 strategic initiatives we will focus on in order to achieve these goals?
Operational and Financial Requirements
How should we allocate our organizational, financial, and technology resources for best results? Are there additional resources will we need to invest in? What are the year-by-year estimates of revenue and costs to support our strategic goals?
Implementation tools
Action planning: What key actions need to be taken, when, and by whom, in order to achieve our goals?
Dashboard: What are the critical goals and milestones that will tell us if we are on track? How can we best track our progress over time?
Risk Mitigation and Learning: What are the major risks or unknowns that could derail our goals? How can we mitigate those risks and continue to learn over time?