Getting Started with Strategic Planning: 3 Key Steps

The fuel behind your organization is your mission. It touches each part of your nonprofit’s operations and drives your staff, donors, volunteers, board members and other stakeholders to make a difference.

However, to accomplish your mission, you must put in the behind-the-scenes work necessary to nail down your priorities and get your team on track. That’s where strategic planning comes in.

Whether you’re aiming to upgrade your donor retention efforts, promote new programs, help more beneficiaries or something else entirely, a strategic plan will help you achieve your goals and make decisions that push your mission forward.

In this guide, we’ll quickly walk through the basics of strategic planning and present the steps needed to develop a strong plan for your organization. Let’s get started!

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process of creating an action plan that aligns your nonprofit’s work with its values. The resulting document will inform your team of your long-term goals, priorities and projects. With this clarity, you can better work together to create effective campaigns, prepare for potential external changes or challenges and execute your mission.

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

As previously mentioned, strategic planning helps rally your team together around your nonprofit’s goals and cause. Once you have this guiding document in place, your organization will experience the following benefits:

• Improved time management. With clear priorities, your team can reserve its time for what’s most important. Plus, your plan will help staff and board members better understand their roles, allowing your nonprofit’s leaders to divert some team management time to more mission-critical tasks.

• Better decision-making. Backed by your strategic plan, your team will be able to make better decisions that align with your goals and vision for the future.

• Enhanced mission statement. When developing your strategic plan, take the opportunity to clarify or update your mission statement if necessary. That way, you can ensure it’s accurate and reflects your organization’s current work.
• Easier results tracking. Solidified goals allow you to monitor your nonprofit’s progress more easily. Select key performance indicators (KPIs) for each goal so you can measure your results and identify areas for improvement.

While creating a strategic plan will require an investment of your team’s time and energy, it’s well worth the benefits your organization will receive.

3 Key Strategic Planning Steps

Now that you understand strategic planning and why it’s so important, you’re ready to embark on the process. To give you some direction, Aly Sterling Philanthropy’s nonprofit strategic planning guide recommends following this three-step framework:

1. Assess your nonprofit’s current state

Before you start planning for the future, you have to review your organization’s here and now. You’ll look into important aspects of your nonprofit that have made your organization what it is today, including your nonprofit’s history, infrastructure and core programs.

Additionally, pinpoint areas where your organization could improve its operations. For instance, if you’re falling short of your fundraising goals, it may be time to revamp your overall fundraising approach. Alternatively, you may be having trouble with volunteer recruitment and need a better strategy for promoting your volunteer program.

Open up this pre-planning process to a variety of stakeholders to uncover insights into your operations you might not be aware of. Survey people tied to your organization to collect their feedback. These individuals may include:

• Current and past board members
• Current major donors
• Influential community members
• Volunteers and staff
• Beneficiaries

For instance, a beneficiary might suggest a slight change to your programming that will allow you to make a larger impact, a major donor may point to a potential large project they would be willing to fund or a volunteer may have insight into how to improve your volunteer recruitment strategy. Incorporating these diverse perspectives into your plan ensures it caters to everyone in your community and includes them in your vision for the future.

2. Align your goals and develop clear priorities

Take what you’ve gathered from your research and stakeholder surveys to determine the issues you’d like to focus on. Work with your board and staff members to prioritize these problems and translate them into clear solutions.

For example, let’s say your donor retention rate is declining. You may prioritize updating your donor appreciation strategy to ensure donors feel valued and empowered to continue supporting your nonprofit. In this case, NXUnite recommends leveraging unique donor recognition ideas like personalized eCards, thank-you videos and handmade gifts to show you care.

Regardless of what your specific priorities are, make sure they align with your overarching goals. For example, if one of your goals is to strengthen relationships with local businesses, you may reach out to them to secure gifts for your donors. In return, you can promote these businesses to make your partnership worthwhile for them.

3. Create an action plan

Help your team act on these priorities by developing a plan that outlines all the information they need to move forward. A strong action plan will include the following elements:

• Action steps. Break down your priorities into smaller tasks your team can execute. For example, to improve your donor appreciation strategy, you may invest in eCard software, develop a template for thank-you letters that allows for greater personalization and start reaching out to local businesses to source donor recognition gifts.

• Timeline and milestones. Establishing a timeline will keep everyone accountable for completing their responsibilities in a timely manner. Additionally, adding milestones and benchmarks along the way will allow your team to check in, evaluate their progress and determine if you need to adjust the timeline.

• Leaders. All staff and board members involved in your plan should know which action steps they’re responsible for and the associated timelines. Inform them of their roles upfront to foster accountability and address any questions they may have.

• Necessary resources. Determine any additional resources you’ll need to acquire to fulfill your priorities. These may include new software solutions, more staff members or access to training courses.

Future and ongoing actions. Set up a system that allows you to assess progress along the way. For instance, you may schedule meetings that correspond with each milestone on your timeline to see whether your team has accomplished its objectives or needs more time to do so.