Issue 17 | GIVING magazine
By Joe Garecht,
President, Garecht Fundraising Associates
“Strategic planning.”
Do any two words inspire more dread and hatred in the nonprofit world? It seems that everyone has at least one bad experience with a strategic planning process gone awry, and no one enjoys the interviews, the arguments, and the conversations (the endless conversations!) that take place during a strategic planning cycle.
Maybe that’s why so many nonprofits are operating without a strategic plan. Or, more likely, with a strategic plan that is woefully outdated. I can’t tell you the number of times I have worked with a client whose last strategic plan was written when the current Development Director was in college (or in at least a few cases … high school!)
The fact is, though, that when it comes to nonprofit organizations, you’re either planning, doing, or dying. Your nonprofit is either in the middle of a planning process, figuring out the strategies and tactics that will take it to the next level … or you’re in the middle of the “doing” phase, implementing the plan and achieving all of those milestones. If you’re not in one of those two phases, that means you’re in a third (and much less enviable) phase: your nonprofit is dying.
Organizations that are operating without a current strategic plan are rudderless. Good strategic plans establish the vision for the organization’s next 3-5 years. Preferably, a vision that the board and senior leadership all agree on. Strategic plans provide a roadmap for your work, establishing timelines, milestones, and metrics. They help you get things done — the right things — on time and with a minimum of dissention.
Without a strategic plan in place, senior leaders may have a vision that differs from the CEO’s, which differs from the board’s. Even if everyone is on the same page with the ultimate goals, there is bound to be disagreement about how to get there. The metrics are different. The timeline is different. The tactics are different. And that leads to chaos of the type that kills amazing nonprofits and turns them into shells of themselves.
What phase is your nonprofit in? Are you planning, doing, or dying?
Issue 17 | GIVING magazine
