Setting a strong course for the future can help your organization navigate any challenges that come your way and make the most of your resources. Strategic planning can help you chart the course, and make it work. Keeping a consistent focus is especially critical and difficult for nonprofit organizations due to the absence of any single measure, such as profits, to determine success. Strategic planning can provide clear direction leading to consistent and planned results. Developing a strategic plan is similar to outfitting a vehicle with navigational instruments to provide direction and control to help you arrive at your destination.
Finances are only one of the many issues being examined.
Selecting the Planning Participants Before beginning the strategic planning process, it is important to decide who you should involve. It is critical to include those whose input can ensure that the final product is viable and can be executed. Your group should include people with a diverse range of interests and functions from throughout the organization, but it should not be made up of more than 12 people. More than this makes the process too cumbersome. This ensures continuity, understanding and agreement on the mission and future goals.