Let me help you get strategic
clarity and focus your efforts
Find consensus and alignment
Focus on the essential few
Increase your impact
Your board is spinning its wheels
Your leadership has tons of ideas about how to serve your people. But there are too many ideas for your existing team to implement all at once. You need to narrow it down!
Your organization's past strategic planning efforts have looked like...
"We came out of the session really energized and excited. The facilitator provided us with a summary of our brainstorm... but then nothing happened with it!"
"Tons of ideas came forward and we all felt really good about the direction we decided to go in... but a year later, we're no closer to achieving our goals."
We developed our approach to strategic planning with YOU in mind.
Many nonprofit organizations are struggling to connect their ideas with the execution.
Having a clearly defined strategic plan affects so many parts of your organization's operations. Without a plan that ties your vision to specific results, your team puts time and energy into the wrong activities - things that don't align to your vision. This results in make-work projects, difficult decision-making, and disengaged staff and volunteers.
There are two crucial components to an effective strategic plan
The vision of the future
For most organizations, this is the easy part. A vision of the future can come from brainstorming sessions, discussions at board meetings... it is generative and creative.
The workplan
This part is much harder. It is about distilling the ideas down to a handful of priorities, determining objectives for each, uncovering a way to measure progress toward the objective, assigning a responsible person, and setting it all to a timeline. This piece draws on the logical part of the brain to organize, rank, and structure the information.
We employ a strengths-based approach that ties in goal-setting techniques.
We prefer the SOAR framework (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) over the traditional SWOT analysis because we believe in abundance and attraction.
Let's focus on what your organization already does well and further honing those strengths. Dwelling on areas of weakness or what the "competitors" are doing draws your focus away from your goals and ultimately holds you back.
We also put a focus on gathering ideas from a wide range of stakeholder groups - because your biggest strength is your community.
Meet LAURIE
I have been providing leadership in the nonprofit field for 13+ years as a staff member and a volunteer. I have worked as a fundraiser within the higher education and healthcare philanthropy fields; served as a board member in organizations relating to food insecurity, youth mentorship, and economic development; and provided leadership to clients that support mental health initiatives and safe community spaces.
I'm a strong strategic thinker with a reputation for being highly-organized, solution-oriented, biased to action, and driven to output- and outcome-based results.
Community engagement is my jam. I'm passionate about working with volunteer organizations and small nonprofit teams who are looking to level up - ready to improve their governance practices, think more strategically, attract more funding, and make more impact.
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What to expect
Stakeholder engagement
We always start our process by conducting a stakeholder survey. It is important to gather ideas from a wide range of stakeholder groups because there is power in having diverse voices at the table. This process ensures you're actually helping the people you want to help. Including voices from various areas of the organization also prevents 'silo effect' and encourages buy-in.
Strategic planning facilitation
Armed with the results from the stakeholder survey, we will facilitate two planning sessions that can take place over two days. No more full-day workshops! These sessions will take place online, using digital tools and methods carefully crafted to ensure attendees can participate equitably and fully. Digital records will be shared following the sessions, so none of your good ideas fall through the cracks!
Creating your action plan
Incorporating the feedback and decisions from the previous steps, we'll draft your action plan. Using our 13+ years of experience in the nonprofit sector, we'll craft a plan that ties your vision to specific objectives and key results. This action plan can then guide your progress reports, inform personnel evaluation, and provide clarity when communicating with your broader community.
FAQs
Every client engagement looks a little different, based on your unique needs. But a typical timeline for this project might look like... Your stakeholder survey is distributed 3 weeks prior to our first scheduled workshop session. The record of proceedings will be shared with leadership within 1 week of the final scheduled workshop session. A draft of the action plan will be shared with leadership within 2 weeks following the final scheduled workshop session. Additional amendments will be made and your final action plan document will be provided back to you within the following week.
Strategic Plan Development starts at $5,000 plus tax.
Yes, I am happy to discuss in-person options that might work for your organization. Typically, in-person facilitation incurs additional costs due to the extra time required to capture and process notes, travel, and supplies.
Each organization engages their community in different ways, so we will provide you with a formalized, written action plan that can be used for internal decision making and progress tracking. If you would also like a publication-quality document designed, we are happy to connect you with our design partner.
It's important to start by assessing your existing plan. Has it expired / come to the end of its timeframe? In some cases, you may find that your implementation has veered wildly from your original plan (as many orgs experienced during the pandemic). If that’s the case, you probably want to invest in a revision process. At the point where your strategic plan no longer makes sense for your organization, it’s time to get a new one. We can work with you to determine the best timeframe for your new plan.