Excerpts Series: Strategic Planning 101
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We use the graphic at right when talking about Strategic Planning. It's a visual that helps us not only see the big picture, but how all those different pieces fit together. It is a foundation that helps us create a road map - a plan for where we want to go and how to scale along the way.
When we talk about this idea of Strategic Planning, we have to put together a foundation. From that foundation we can build a plan. The plan itself is our next stretch of road.
When people say, “We need to do a Strategic Plan,” what they mean is, we need to have a map for the next three to five years. Certainly that is included when we talk about Strategic Planning. It’s an important element. However, equally important is knowing our vision, our mission and our values, as an organization.
These three things: vision, mission and values really lay the foundation for how we operate as an organization.Then we can begin to put in place what we want to accomplish over the next three to five years. So until we have the foundation set we really shouldn’t be talking about where we’re headed. We can’t understand the stretch of road called the Strategic Plan without the context of vision, mission and values.
When we talk about VISION for the organization, there are two components.
External vision: where are we going? We can look at external vision in a number of ways. Different terms resonate with different people in different ways. Figure out which piece of this makes sense to you as you think about your organization or nonprofit. What do we want our community or our world or our neighborhood to look like if we’re successful in our work?
So it’s big picture. It’s not, I want to feed 25 kids…. That’s not external vision. But, Removing food insecurity from our community, is big picture vision.
It’s asking yourself, what do I hope to be true at the end of my work? What do we hope to achieve? What do we want to see done differently? How do we think this work that we’re doing is going to impact the community? That’s big picture external vision.
If you haven’t taken time with your leadership team or your board to identify that, that would be a great first step for you. Ask the question: At the end of our work at this organization, we want our community, our state, our world — whatever geography you cover —what do we want to be different as a result of our work? That’s external vision.
It’s key that we get this right. What are we working toward? Why are we doing this work? Because we want this to be true.
“We want community where no child is hungry.”
“We want a county where everyone has a place to live.”
Those ideas, those statements are what make up an external vision. What is that you hope to achieve through your organization? That’s your external vision. Having a group of leaders, your board and executive team, that get and agree on your external vision is critical to the rest of the plan. They all have to be moving in the same direction for the same purpose and external vision is that purpose.
I envision a world where this is true… I want a city that… I see a community that… those are some of the lead-ins that you can use to try and define what that external vision is.
External vision is what do we hope to achieve?
Internal Vision: who are we becoming?
The external vision is what we hope to achieve with the work of our organization — the desired end-state. The utopia that we are shooting for. Internal vision is — who are we striving to be as an organization? What do we look like when we’re successful? We want to become the premier organization that feeds kids in our community. That would be an internal vision.
External — we envision a community where no child is hungry.
Internal — we want to be the organization that makes this happen.
We want to be remembered as an organization that…
We want to be the premier/best/most…
We want to reflect the best…
We want to become…
These lead-in questions will help you on the path of defining who you are becoming as an organization.
Again, this is a critical piece to have in place as you start on this path of creating a strategic plan. Your vision has to be unified. So the board and executive leadership team have to be unified in where you’re headed and who you’re becoming. These are conversations to be having at the executive level.
