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Strategic Planning 2

Strategic Planning (cont'd)

What do I need to know before I start the planning process?
The following addresses the concerns of the pre-planning stage. This stage is divided into three phases, each addressing different issues and questions. They are:
To plan or not to plan
The level of planning
Once the decision to plan has been made

To Plan or Not to Plan
The Benefits of Planning
Planning consumes resources, a precious commodity for all nonprofits. As a process that eventually defines the direction and activities of the organization, it can be an overwhelming and daunting task. Despite the overwhelming nature of the process, the benefits of planning can far outweigh the hardships.

There are benefits to be gained from the actual planning process, as well as from the final planning document. The very activities that nonprofit staff and boards conduct as part of the planning process empower them to be more effective in their roles-more informed leaders, managers, and decision makers. In addition, the final planning document becomes a tool that can be used to effectively and efficiently manage the organization.

The time devoted to the planning process varies from organization to organization and depends on the resources available to devote to the process. Whether you decide to devote only a two day retreat to the process or engage in a twelve month process, your organization will begin to realize the benefits from the start. Some of the fundamental benefits to the planning process and the development of the final plan include:
a framework and a clearly defined direction that guides and supports the governance and management of the organization
a uniform vision and purpose that is shared among all constituencies
an increased level of commitment to the organization and its goals
improved quality of services for clients and a means of measuring the service
a foundation for fund raising and board development
the ability to set priorities and to match resources to opportunities
the ability to deal with risks from the external environment and
a process to help with crisis management

Prerequisites for Planning: Key Factors that Must be in Place Before Beginning the Planning Process
As with any major effort, a planning process has its proper time and place in the organization. There are certain organizational elements that must be in place in order to ensure that the planning process will provide the maximum benefit to the organization. It is important to be candid when assessing the organization's readiness to engage in the planning process. Even if you get half way through the planning process before you realize that the organization is not ready, stop and remedy the situation before continuing with the process. Unfortunately, many organizations plan when the organization is not ready. They always have an unsatisfactory planning process and subsequent results. Make sure the following elements are addressed before making the commitment to plan:

a commitment of active and involved leadership, with continuous leadership engaged throughout the planning process
a resolution of major crises that may interfere with the long range thinking during, commitment to, and participation in the planning process (e.g., insufficient funds for the next payroll, the organization is not operating legally, etc.)
a board and staff that are not embroiled in extreme, destructive conflict
a board and staff who understand the purpose of planning and what it can and cannot accomplish, as well as consensus about expectations
a commitment of resources to adequately assess current programs and the ability to meet current and future client needs and
a willingness to question the status quo and to look at new approaches to performing and evaluating the "business" of the organization

Level of Planning
As with any other organizational effort, you can do a little planning or a lot of planning. "Enough planning" is when your organization's leadership understands and has consensus about a clear organizational direction.

Planning Resource Requirements
As a nonprofit organization, it is critical to examine what needs you are attempting to address from the planning process and the resources available to engage in the process. It is safe to assume that an organization can expect more benefits from a more informed, more resource intensive process.

The key resources required for planning are staff time, board time, and dollars (e.g., market research, consultants, etc.). Specific examples of time resources consumed by the planning process might include time spent:

collecting and analyzing environmental information
engaging key stakeholders
gathering historical financial information, projecting future budgets, and cash flow projections and
analyzing options and consequences for potential organizational and program strategies.

The amount of resources, time, and money spent on planning should reflect the complexity of the issues you are addressing and the availability of information and resources. Resource requirements will vary for every organization.

The Role of an External Consultant
For an organization with little or no experience in planning, an external consultant can enhance the planning process by providing the following services:

Facilitating of retreats, meetings and the planning process as a whole: The use of a consultant to serve as the "conversation traffic cop" is one method of ensuring that good ideas do not get lost in the emotion of the process or personality of the participants. A consultant can work with an organization to minimize planning barriers that impact effectiveness, using his or her experience as a source of tried and true processes.

Training in planning information and processes: It is critical for everyone involved in the planning process to be speaking the same language and using the same planning tools. External consultants can provide that conduit of information flow and education.
Providing an objective and different perspective in the process: As an outsider to the organization, the consultant can ask questions and challenge existing traditions, assumptions, and routines more objectively than staff and board members. Often planners do not realize that they are using jargon or have made certain assumptions about their constituency. Having an outside consultant participate in the planning process helps ensure that organizations stay true to one of the prerequisites of engaging in the planning process, the willingness to question the status quo.

The process expert role: The consultant who has facilitated and conducted many strategic planning processes can provide significant information and advice on tools and processes that can best accomplish your process and content goals.

Once the Decision to Plan Has Been Made
The planning process is like any other process, it needs to be managed. People have many expectations when they hear the word planning. It is important to make sure that everyone is operating from the same set of expectations and knowledge base. Organizations often train key board and staff members in process and planning language before embarking on the planning process.

Large groups of individuals are not conducive to the creation of documents and quick decision making. They are more suited to producing feedback, ideas, and suggestions about existing documents or modifying draft decisions after the initial analysis has been completed. A strategic planning committee is one tool that is used to focus the energies and responsibilities of the process. The planning committee spearheads the process, serving as the quarterback of the team, but it does not take sole responsibility for all decision making and all the nuts and bolts work.

It is also important to identify the potential information needs of the process. Key decisions will be made during planning. In order for these decisions to be high quality, decision analysts and decision makers need to have appropriate financial, program, and client information.

Another tool used in the management of the planning process is a work plan, or a plan to plan. It is an outline of the steps and activities that will take place during the planning process. The plan specifies the tasks, outcomes, resources to be expended (time and financial), and the person(s) responsible in each of the phases in the process.

Steps to Prepare for Planning
The following items summarize the steps necessary to prepare for the planning process:
Obtain a formal commitment to conduct planning, including education of board and staff, if necessary
Select a strategic planning committee of no more than five to seven people, a combination of visionaries and "actionaries," or a planning liaison to spearhead the process
Develop a workplan or a plan to plan that outlines who is responsible for each outcome and time frames
Consider the adequate level of resources (dollars and time) required to conduct an appropriate planning process

What are the individual roles in a planning process?
When involving individuals in a planning process, you must ask and answer several key questions to ensure that each individual's involvement is appropriate and will contribute to the successful execution of the strategic planning process. The key questions that should be answered for your organization include:

Why is it important to have a variety of people involved in the planning process?
Who should we include in the planning process? When we say stakeholders, who exactly are they? Are there individuals who we might not traditionally think of including, but who might be able to contribute valuable perspectives? What are the issues that must be considered when evaluating an individual's appropriateness and applicability to the planning process?
How do we involve individuals in the planning process? What role do these individuals play? What do we expect as a result of their involvement?

Planning Should Be an Inclusive Process
A planning process should be designed to include all board, staff, and other individuals invested in the success of your organization. An inclusive process:

helps to build both internal and external enthusiasm and commitment to the organization and its strategies. Individuals take on ownership of the goals and efforts to achieve the stated outcomes
ensures that your informational data base reflects the needs and perceptions of internal individuals and external constituents
incorporates a level of objectivity into the process. "Outsiders" can identify jargon or ask critical questions around which "insiders" might make assumptions
develops foundations for future working relationships
develops uniformity of purpose among all stakeholders
establishes a continual information exchange among staff, management, customers, and other key stakeholders.

Who Should the Planning Process Include?
Ideally, all key stakeholders should be involved in the planning process at some level. Stakeholders are individuals that are invested in the success or failure of your organization's mission. Key stakeholders include those persons who can either significantly help or hinder the implementation of your plan.

Key stakeholders may include individuals or groups who you do not traditionally think of including, but are able to contribute valuable perspectives. Examples of key stakeholders may include:

Board of Directors: The role of the full board is one of governance and oversight. As the entity responsible for governing the organization, its focus should remain on the ultimate and overreaching goals and strategies necessary to achieve organizational success. Therefore, the full board should be involved in processing environmental information and the approval of the vision, values and priorities. As the governing body, it should formally vote on adopting the plan as the management framework around which the organization will develop its operating plan(s).

Staff: Nonprofit staff are a critical ingredient to successful planning - they are the link between the visions and the every day activities of an organization. In an inclusive process, the philosophy is to give staff input and, when appropriate, authority when determining the means of the organization. These individuals have the experience and knowledge around critical success factors that should not be ignored. When staff are not an integral part of the planning discussions, they need to be informed of the decisions that have been made. Involving staff will:

- ensure the realism of the plan 
- encourage all levels of the organization to take ownership of organizational vision and goals 
- involve the organization's future leadership in the development of its identity and vision 
- unite individual visions into a single collective vision for the organization.

You should include staff who are both current (part and full time, salaried, and unpaid) and previous employees.

Clients: As nonprofit organizations, our sole reason for existence is to improve the condition of a segment of our society, whether it is feeding hungry or homeless individuals, providing quality cultural experiences to patrons of the arts, or increasing independence for individuals with disabilities. In a planning process, it is critical to ask and answer, "How well are we meeting the needs of our customers/clients or members?" Directly involving these constituents (both current and previous clients) in the planning process is one of the best methods for assessing organizational performance and receiving guidance for future client needs and program foci.

Other External Stakeholders: In order for a planning process to be strategic it must address external issues and their potential impact on the organization. Including external stakeholders in the process is one fundamental way of ensuring that these issues will be incorporated into discussions and considered in the organization's future. External stakeholders can educate staff and the board on the perception of the organization in the community, as well as identify areas where services are being duplicated. Involving external key stakeholders in a planning process can establish a solid rapport on which you can develop powerful business relationships.

External key stakeholders include: funders (existing and potential), community leaders, competitors, potential collaborators, other agencies in parallel or related fields, volunteers, etc.

The Planning Committee
It is important to have a formal planning team or committee that spearheads the planning process. The planning committee is not responsible for doing all of the work it is responsible for ensuring that the work gets done. In essence, it becomes the cornerstone of the team: creating initial drafts of planning documents deciding which stakeholders to involve - how and at what stage and prioritizing or narrowing information for the organization to discuss and evaluate. The committee serves to maintain the efficiency of the process.

The planning committee should be:
limited to no more than five to seven individuals
a combination of visionaries (individuals who see what the organization can be) and "actionaries"(those who ask what the current organizational resources will support and ensure that the projected goals and tasks are realistic)
a group of individuals who has formal or informal power and the respect of the rest of the organization
a combination of board and staff members, including the executive director and the individual who will write the final plan.

What's in a mission statement?
In just a few sentences a mission statement needs to communicate the essence of your organization to your stakeholders and to the public. For example:
At the Developmental Studies Center we develop, evaluate, and disseminate programs that foster children's ethical, social, and intellectual development. While nurturing children's capacity to think skillfully and critically, we also strive to deepen children's commitment to prosocial values such as kindness, helpfulness, personal responsibility, and respect for others - qualities we believe are essential to leading humane and productive lives in a democratic society.

Often, however, organizations want to say more about who they are, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. Therefore, another example of a mission statement format is illustrated by the mission statement developed by the Forest Service. After a brief statement, the Forest Service uses three pages to elaborate its mission, vision, and guiding principles. Excerpts from the expanded statement include:
The phrase, "caring for the land and serving the people," captures the Forest Service mission. As set forth in law, the mission is to achieve quality land management under the sustainable multiple-use management concept to meet the diverse needs of people.

It includes advocating a conservation ethic...

Vision: We are recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in caring for the land and service people...

Guiding Principles: To realize our mission and vision, we follow 13 guiding principles ...
Neither approach is necessarily the "right" one for your organization. What is important about your mission statement is that one guiding set of ideas is articulated, understood and supported by the organization's stakeholders, board, staff, volunteers, donors, clients, and collaborators.

The Need for a Mission Statement
In Profiles of Excellence, the Independent Sector lists a clear, agreed upon mission statement first among the four primary characteristics of successful nonprofit organizations. Specifically, the four primary characteristics include:
a clear, agreed-upon mission statement
a strong, competent executive director
a dynamic board of directors
an organization-wide commitment to fundraising.

The primary importance of the mission statement means that failure to clearly state and communicate your organization's mission can have harmful consequences, including:
organization members can waste time "barking up the wrong tree"
the organization may not think broadly enough about different possibilities if its mission statement is unclear or overly narrow
the organization may not realize when it is time to go out of business

Finally, the importance of mission statements is summarized quite eloquently by Lewis Caroll through the words of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, "If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter which way you go." Indeed!

What Should Be in a Mission Statement?
The following concepts are critical in defining "who" your organization is:

The Purpose Statement
The purpose statement clearly states what your organization seeks to accomplish: Why does your organization exist? What is the ultimate result of your work?

Purpose statements usually include two phrases:
an infinitive that indicates a change in status, such as to increase, to decrease, to prevent, to eliminate
an identification of the problem or condition to be changed.
An example of a purpose statement is "to eliminate homelessness."

In defining purpose, it is essential to focus on outcomes and results rather than methods: How is the world going to be different? What is going to change? Thus, the purpose of a mental health counseling agency would never be simply "to provide counseling services," for that is describing a method rather than a result. Rather, the purpose might be "to improve the quality of life" for its clients.

The Business Statement
This statement outlines the "business(es)" (i.e., activities or programs) your organization chooses in order to pursue its purpose. Specifically, you must answer, "What activity are we going to do to accomplish our purpose?" For example, there are many ways to work on the problem of homelessness:
to construct housing for homeless individuals
to educate the public and advocate for public policy changes
to provide job training to homeless individuals.
Each of these are different businesses, but they may be different means of achieving the same purpose.

Business statements often include the verb "to provide" or link a purpose statement with the words "by" or "through." For example: "To eliminate homelessness by providing job training to homeless individuals."

A cautionary note: If the word "and" is in your purpose or business statement, ask yourselves, "Are we really committed to both ideas connected by the word" and, "or have we simply not been able to accept that one idea is more important?"

Values
Values are beliefs which your organization's members hold in common and endeavor to put into practice. The values guide your organization's members in performing their work. Specifically, you should ask, "What are the basic beliefs that we share as an organization?"

Examples of values include: a commitment to excellent services, innovation, diversity, creativity, honesty, integrity, and so on. Values may include beliefs such as: "Eating vegetables is more economically efficient and ecologically responsible than eating beef." (Vegetarian Association)

Marvin Weisbord writes in Productive Workplaces that values come alive only when people are involved in doing important tasks. Ideally, an individual's personal values will align with the spoken and unspoken values of the organization. By developing a written statement of the values of the organization, group members have a chance to contribute to the articulation of these values, as well as to evaluate how well their personal values and motivation match those of the organization.

The example of a mission statement cited at the beginning of this response sheet includes all three elements of what should be included in a mission statement. To review:

At the Developmental Studies Center we develop, evaluate, and disseminate programs [business] that foster children's ethical, social, and intellectual development [purpose]. While nurturing children's capacity to think skillfully and critically, we also strive to deepen children's commitment to prosocial values such as kindness, helpfulness, personal responsibility, and respect for others - qualities we believe are essential to leading humane and productive lives in a democratic society [values].

Below is another example of a mission statement which includes all three elements:
The YMCA of San Francisco, based in Judeo-Christian heritage [values], seeks to enhance the lives of all people [purpose] through programs designed to develop spirit, mind and body [business].

In addition to the three elements discussed above, you may want to address the following questions in developing your organization's mission statement:
What is the problem or need your organization is trying to address?
What makes your organization unique?
Who are the beneficiaries of your work?

Clearly, the answers to the these questions could be included in the mission statement or added as elaboration of the mission statement.

How To Write a Mission Statement
There is no formula for finding the wording that best expresses the collective intention of your organization. It can be drafted by one person alone or after input gathered at leadership retreat. The most important issue is that there is consensus on the answers to the questions used in developing the mission statement.

One approach is to use time at a board retreat to discuss these questions and find out where the areas of consensus are and where there are differences. There is a "process" benefit to hashing over an organization's mission statement as well. In the course of discussion and debate, new members are introduced to nuances of an organization's mission and changes in the environment, and old members refresh their understanding of both. As a result, the group will have confidence that the mission statement which emerges (whether it is a new statement or a rededication to the old mission statement) is genuinely an articulation of commonly held ideas.

Groups are good at many things, but one of them is not writing. Have group discussions about big ideas and concepts and then let one or two individuals draft and redraft the wording before submitting a reworked version for the group to respond to. It is important to circulate the draft mission statement a few times to board, staff, and other stakeholders. Some consultants advise organizations to also seek an outside opinion from someone unfamiliar with the organization to see how easily the mission statement can be understood.

Mix with passion, humanity and an eye on the big picture, and keep refining the mission statement until you have a version that people can actively support.