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up there how's everyone doing today today we're going to be talking about strategic planning for nonprofits I am Sabrina Walker of Mendez I have 25 years of nonprofit experience I am currently working with several clients and strategic planning has been a part of the discussion along the way so a little bit about me I studied political science and public administration and obtained a management and non-profit certification from Harvard Business School and again I've been working in nonprofit industry for 25 years and I retired in 2018 as a CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs in Edinburgh RGV so we're going to get started talking about strategic planning process again to teacher planning for nonprofits that's the slide that's a little bit about me and the objective today is to develop a process for strategic planning that involves board and staff members to identify and discuss how nonprofit boards add value to the strategic strategic planning process to begin the first step of strategic planning process for your organization now I know we're all busy in on our profit world and working on the day to day and so it's kind of a challenge we need to start talking about planning who has the time I was I would say that who doesn't have a time you have to you have to take the time to plan so that you have some four motion so you have a plan on where you're going to go next have your goals and your objectives so I'm going to take that off the table already saying there's no time you have to it is invaluable for you to to go forward and plan to know about your mission statement your vision so your board and your staff and you will have some forward momentum so let's go ahead and take that off the table so first of all you have to access as your organization ready to launch a strategic plan process well let's look at it let's look let's assess do you critical mass of keyboard members who are excited about an in general agreement on the future or the organization are you fairly confident of your cash flow over the next several years do board and staff have the time capacity and commitment to devote to a rigorous and external facing long term planning process can the board and staff confidently articulate what the nonprofit does and why it matters does the organization have the right staff in the right places is your support or fun funder base growing is the majority of your board effectively engaged in your nonprofit and if you can answer yes to these questions if you can't if you can't answer yes to these questions you may not be ready for us for the strategic planning process so really take some time and look at those questions and if you can't answer yes you may not be ready and so this is a good jump off point for you to say okay when I can answer yes to all of these questions then we can start planning a strategic plan but this is a good foundation for you to even start to look at the process of planning okay what is a strategic plan a strategic plan is a communication tool for the board of directors for the staff for volunteers funding sources community representatives and board involvement leads to the agreement on the mission and the goals sanction and ownership from all stakeholders so again what is a strategic plan it's a three to five year plan that defines the business of your nonprofit at all levels it's a communications tool it is a management tool the plan the strategic plan is Dziedzic it's systematic defines your priorities and to commitment now I will say that your in defining your priorities if you're starting the strategic planning process it's good to narrow it down to just kind of three priorities three focus three goals um you don't want to overwhelm yourself you don't want to overwhelm the board so maybe narrowing it down to three focuses on your final plan the benefits of the strategic planning it integrates issues problems and opportunity into one comprehensive planning system sanctioned by stakeholders who agree on mission and vision what does that mean all it means is your board your staff they all agree the CEO they all agree that we're going to focus our energy around this comprehensive plan and everybody is on board and we agree on our mission and we're on our vision we agree on where we're going and that's everybody that is involved all your stakeholders a strategic plan again is a management tool for organizations serious about growth it is going to take you into into the future and have four for movement so I will say this planning is a board responsibility so I have a lot of people that says you know I can't get my board to fundraise and I can't get my board to do this and I can't get my board to do this well planning is abort responsibility so imagine having your board sit down and focus in around your strategic plan it will help you in that fundraising process of getting them on board for those things because in this process you're going to be talking about that and they're going to be exploring that it's not a quick strategic plan is not a quick process it does take some time and in taking that time you're going to be having these conversations about where you want to go and oftentimes when it says we are growing our organization and we want to go here we want to go from A to B that takes resources and so this conversation is going to oftentimes center around resources so you want to get your board it is your board that is responsible for planning it's also your board that is responsible for securing resources so this kind of goes hand-in-hand the strategic plan model within itself like I said it doesn't it's not a quick process by any means so there are some phases into to strategic planning so you're going to review your mission and I will say this you're going to develop shared vision you're going to gather data and you're going to develop strategies so a mission statement what is a mission statement a mission statement is a statement of the organization's purpose or its fundamental reason for existing I always say the mission statement for me was the reason I got up every morning because we all know that working in a non-profit is very hard it's very challenging and so my mission statement was my reason for being it was my reason for getting up every morning and engaging in that nonprofit work so I will say some people say well we have our mission statement and we've had it for a long time well you inherited that mission statement is it still what you're doing is it still your reason for existing so you need to look at that and you need to the board needs to look at that and CEO needs to look at that I would say if you have not looked at your mission statement and the last path past five years it's time you need to maybe touch it up you need to be reviewing it you need to fine-tune it or you may need to have to rewrite it all together but again if you haven't looked at your mission statement in the last five years and it's something that you inherit it from a long time ago before you even came along it might be time for you to kind of look at that again again for me waking up every day and doing the challenging work of the nonprofit the mission was very important to me it was my reason for it it was the reason for existing so it was very critical for that to be a very clear mission statement to know why I was able to get up and with my formal organization I memorized that mission statement because there was many of days that I needed to know what that mission was when the challenges and I was in the trenches the other thing visioning so vision and your vision statement is focusing in on your North Star you know you're forming a strategic vision should be should provide long-term direction it could be as far-reaching as a hundred years or short as five years it should infuse the organization with a sense of perfect purposeful action so some of the mission statement vision statements that we we hear now that seem so far-fetched at the time so we will put a man on the moon before the end of the decade and bring them back that was President John F Kennedy how about this one a computer on every desk and in every home using great software as an empowering tool that was Microsoft so these two statements they sounded crazy at the time but now they're that it actually happened so you just need to make sure your vision serves a unifying focal point for everyone in the organization like a North Star it's short concise and it talks about the future of your organization so that gathering data you should in gathering data you can have key stakeholder interviews focus groups surveys community forums SWOT analysis so it's the color it's collecting existing research and information you can look at previous strategic plan I'm going to get that worried right strategic plans you can look at previous strategic plans summary data from knees assessment of the community ABC Y budget output and outcome data from programs and services customer satisfaction data key studies and report all of these you can use when you're talking about gathering data you can ask us internal and external factors and preparation for change what agencies is doing what those are your streams sharing success across the agency to Bill morale how to build on current strengths areas for improvement those would be consider your weaknesses diverse perspectives from stakeholders and buy-in and possibility for agencies those are opportunities those are the areas for growth and change and then you have some external factors influencing growth which are threats being realistic and proactive with strengths and opportunities so when I say SWOT analysis that strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats so develop strategies this combines everything you learn in your SWOT analysis against why is strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats and applies it to the development or development of three to four strategies that either maximize strengths and opportunities or minimize weaknesses and threats so remember what I said at the top at the top of the video that you're only looking for about three goals that that's where we had three to four strategies when I say strategies and goals I use those interchangeably they either maximize your strengths and opportunities or minimizes your weakness and threats so you're going to have the board vote on those strategies then you're going to prepare a work plan have the board vote on the full plan and then you're going to implement and monitor so if we could go back a little bit there's four parts again you're going to be looking at the mission statement you're going to be looking at the vision statement you're going to be gathering data and then you are going to be moving forward after you gather data to actually coming up with your analogies and so once you do that and you narrow it down to your three to four strategies you're going to have the board vote on those strategies prepare you're going to prepare a work plan add the board vote on a floor plan and you're going to implement and monitor so I used the strategic planning process as a CEO of a nonprofit organization to increase the operating budget from seven hundred and fifty thousand to two for 2.5 million in an eight-year period so when I say that strategic planning very important I cannot stress it enough if you're going to move your organization's budget from 750 thousand to 2.5 million or from whatever you're starting at to your end goal you have to have a plan in place you just can't simply you can't wing it so I would say you really have to invest the time that it takes in planning you really cannot afford not to plan and I know you're in the trenches I know you're doing the day-to-day work and you're like when do I have time to plan I'm always putting out fires I'm always doing it this so who has time to plan well again if you remember at the top assess where you're at and if you can say if you can't say yes to those that you're not ready for planning but if you can say yes or if your new organization just starting out you don't want to be winging it just starting out take the time to plan upfront I cannot stress this enough I cannot stress that strategic planning was one of the key components to my success of increasing my budget and getting my board engaged and I know that this track record works because I the organization went from 750 thousand dollars to 2.5 million dollars in an eight-year period our strategic plan was we started out with a 18-month strategic plan someone's asked me that before how how many years are what's the length of the strategic plan well we start out with an 18-month strategic plan and then from an 18 month we moves into a five-year strategic plan so I was a minimum of 18 months maximum of five years you should be looking at this about every five years and don't put it on the Shelf is a living breathing document that you take down and that you refer to quite often so I cannot stress that enough so thank you for attending my webinar if you're interested in going deeper into this and would like to explore how this all relates to you book a call with me at supporting world Hope dot a s dot me on the we can discuss how to get started with Suchitra planning how to engage stakeholders and how to engage stakeholder in the stakeholders in the strategic planning process that was actually quite fun for me involving the board the staff the community members um the people that we serve in that strategic planning process so I will say questions if you have questions feel free to type them and I will get back to them I also ask a favor of you I ask that you follow me on Facebook LinkedIn and YouTube you can follow me at supporting world hope and on Instagram at the nonprofit expert so you can also find me and these recordings on WWII porting where a hope comm and that is my time for today I hope this was valuable for you thank you