Gather No Moss: Strategic Planning in Difficult Times

In these days of economic difficulties, even well-established organizations are facing the grim reality of tightened purse strings. As the nonprofit sector continues to feel the impact of our turbulent economy, it is critical that organizations be able to look to their boards of directors and their senior management for leadership and stability.

Remember, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” In order to be the “rolling stone” that can change with the times and deal effectively with economic struggle, boards and senior management must be proactive and deliberate.

Strategic planning is a useful tool to help an organization understand the environment in which it operates, improve decision making, enhance organizational responsiveness, and directly benefit staff, clients, and key stakeholders.

Five basic elements of a successful strategic planning cycle, defined in terms of proverbial wisdom, are:

• “Charity begins at home.” Examination of your vision and mission.
• “Look before you leap.” Completion of a thorough SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.
• “Two heads are better than one.” Development of your organization’s strategic plan.
• “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” Creation of a balanced scorecard.
• “Well begun is half done.” Evaluation of performance and the quest for continuous improvement.

‘Charity Begins at Home’

An organization’s most important guiding principles are its vision and mission. Definition of these principles, and adherence to them, is the best compass to guide you through tough economic times.

As described by Carter McNamara, a nonprofit consultant, the vision of an organization is “a vivid statement of the organization as it effectively carries out its operations.” The vision of any nonprofit defines its ultimate motivation, its dreams, and its image of a desired future. It describes the ideal situation if the organization could fulfill its utmost wish.

An organization’s mission is more active than its vision, describing the needs that the organization is designed to fulfill and the activities, at a very high level, that help the organization to achieve its vision.

When organizations fall on hard times, it is important to remember that charity begins at home. Take a close look at the vision and mission of the organization. This is done to ensure that the activities embraced by the organization are still in line with that mission and vision.

Attention to mission helps the board adhere to its primary purpose and serves as a cornerstone and touchstone for decision making during times of conflict. The mission statement can also be used as a compass for resource allocation. A powerful mission statement can attract donors, volunteers, and community involvement.

‘Look Before You Leap’

A thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your organization, coupled with an understanding of the opportunities and threats within the current environment is a necessity to inform decisions made about the strategic direction of your organization.

This SWOT analysis allows you to take a step back to examine the environment in which you operate. It is an important part of an effective strategic planning process, especially when the environment is alive with both opportunities and threats resulting from a strange new world of economic stimulus packages and cutthroat competition for the funding still available.

It is important to get a realistic picture of your organization’s financial picture to ensure funding is aligned with desired outcomes. In addition, looking at opportunities to diversify funding to enhance service availability, while strategically looking at what services your consumer base will need in coming years, is critical.

Check to see if you have a diversified funding stream—and if not, develop a plan to diversify. Get an immediate and firm grip on your revenue streams. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions like, “Are we paying people too much?”

Remember to focus your efforts on where the opportunities are, not where they were.

‘Two Heads are Better than One’

Once a SWOT analysis is completed, your organization is ready to discuss its strategic goals and objectives for the upcoming years. The strategic plan will ensure that the goals and objectives for your organization are clearly aligned with your vision and mission. It is developed with an awareness of where your strengths lie and how they overlap with the opportunities present in your current environment.

Ultimately, a strategic plan will articulate, in a brief and comprehensive manner, the high-level goals for the organization in terms of the needs of its clients and stakeholders, organizational structure, learning and growth, and financial sustainability.

Importantly, any strategic plan must include the collaboration, cooperation, and agreement of the board, senior leaders, and staff, as well as other stakeholders.

During tough economic times, this step in the cycle may include the consideration of contingency plans. It is important to think outside your current structure. For example, consider collaboration or even a merger with another nonprofit with a similar mission if it appears that your organization may not be able to continue to provide its important services in the current economic environment.

Also, ensure that fundraising is a top priority. Now is the time to step up the efforts to make your organization attractive to potential funders. It is important not to hide out and try to wait out the storm.

‘A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place’

The balanced scorecard methodology first described by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, and then later modified for nonprofits by Paul R. Niven, allows an organization to translate its high-level goals and objectives to actual tasks and initiatives that can be carried out by staff.

A balanced scorecard, at its best, allows each employee in an organization to truly understand their role in the overarching strategic direction of the organization. Further, it sets up specific metrics to aid the organization in evaluating its progress and growth in terms of more than just financial statistics.

‘Well Begun is Half Done’

The strategic plan document, as well as the balanced scorecard, provides guidance to those involved with the organization—from the most senior executive to the most novice volunteer—on how they can help the organization achieve its goals.

But, the strategic planning process will be wasted if there are not methods established to evaluate progress achieved and to inform methods of continuously improving the quality of the services offered by the organization and the methods in which those services are funded.

Through the integration of an organization-wide performance and quality improvement program into the balanced scorecard, progress toward identified organizational goals and objectives will also feed back into the management cycle. Thereby, it allows the organization to constantly examine its mission and vision, educating itself on its current environment; defining its goals and objectives; and communicating those goals to its staff in a manner that allows for action, not just lip service.

‘A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss’

Across the United States, there are hundreds of examples of organizations that have had to close their doors and stop providing essential services to the community because of the economic crisis facing this country.

In Maine, the Jason Program, which helped families facing the struggle of caring for a severely disabled family member, had to close its doors because funding dried up. In Indiana, the Community Caring Program, a program dedicated to assisting seniors with simple chores and maintenance for their homes, had to seek out a new collaboration with another organization and is still in danger of not being able to provide these important services to senior citizens in Hamilton County due to lack of funding.

These are just two examples of important programs that have either had to stop providing services altogether or have been forced to make massive changes to their structure in order to survive.

On a happier note, however, there are stories of organizations that have embraced some of the concepts described above and have found success.

The largest danger in times like these is to remain stagnate. An organization that does not invest in an understanding of how it can best move forward will not be able to survive and compete with organizations that are better prepared.

The strategies described above, while certainly not a cure-all, provide the insight that enables an organization to identify the opportunities best suited to the services it wishes to provide and to allow it to compete with other similar organizations for funding.

Finally, this process can have a direct effect on the organization’s staff, clients, and stakeholders by providing them with the ability to better fulfill their roles and meet responsibilities, as well as by encouraging teamwork in a way that other methods cannot.

In these trying economic times, it is important for nonprofit organizations to strive to “gather no moss.” Embracing the process of coming to a full understanding of your organization and then using that understanding to drive the strategic direction—even if it means embracing some sense of change—is the only way to ensure the continued survival of your organization.

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