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There are many approaches to Strategic Planning out there. Many non-profits spend extortionate amounts of time and resources in this area in order to create a thick, dense Strategic Plan that is so overwhelming all it does is collect dust on a back shelf in the Executive Director's office. CSL believes Strategic Planning is both much deeper and much simpler. In truth, it is none other than aligning the organization's priorities, programs and everyday actions with its mission, vision and core values. CSL has created an intensive process for a non-profit to create a high-quality Strategic Plan in a relatively short time. With this process, the Strategic Plan becomes a living, breathing document that the organization can amend quarterly (or more frequently) so it retains its relevance to the organization's evolving challenges, budgetary constraints, goals and priorities.The Strategic Planning process includes a weekend-long retreat in which CSL helps the Board of Directors to balance its efforts toward achieving two key goals:
- Creating the vision and timeless values that guide and inspire the organization.
- Creating time-sensitive goals and objectives that the organization can use to measure its success.
The process culminates in the design of a one-year Action Plan that includes SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Aligned with the organization's mission and vision, Realistic, and Time-based).The Strategic Planning process can be customized by the non-profit organization. Here are 4 key steps in the sequence that CSL encourages most organizations to follow to create a Strategic Plan:
- In the two months preceding the Strategic Planning Board retreat, CSL provides the organization with a brief questionnaire on its internal strengths and challenges and external opportunities and threats. This questionnaire is completed by staff, clients, funders and collaborative partners (e.g. community-based organizations). (In some cases, CSL interviews the organization's primary funders by phone with respect to its internal strengths and challenges and external opportunities and threats and sends the Executive Director a summary of its findings to be distributed to all board members.)CSL facilitates a weekend (usually from Friday night through Sunday mid-day) Strategic Planning Retreat for the Board of Directors (including the Executive Director and, in some cases, select executive staff). At the retreat, the Board designs the main components of the 3-year Strategic Plan.In the month following the retreat, the Executive Director and other executive staff use the board input and decisions from the retreat to write up a draft of the Strategic Plan. CSL provides a potential framework for the Executive Director and staff to create the Action Plan. The Executive Director sends CSL a draft of the Strategic Plan, and CSL provides relevant feedback on format and content.
- After discussion and any final amendments, the Board of Directors approves the new Strategic Plan during an upcoming board meeting or by email.
Click here for Feedback from Fast-Track Strategic Planning Board Retreats
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