In my previous blog, we discussed building and strengthening your social impact network’s theory of change. After defining the social problem, mapping interventions, and exploring assumptions, the question still lingers: What now?
While a theory of change puts your network into the context of the social problem, it does not necessarily define steps to take right now. The need for actionable steps can help the network feel less overwhelmed. Enter the strategic plan, a nearsighted guide to implementing your network’s theory of change and fulfilling the network’s mission.
Why does my social impact network need a strategic plan?
Bryson (2011, 8) defines strategic planning as “a deliberative, disciplined approach to producing fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization (or other entity) is, what it does, and why.” In short, a strategic plan aligns your network’s intentions with its actions. Deliberation and discipline are critical aspects of strategic planning, as they encourage mindful direction toward fulfilling your network’s mission.
Don’t just take my word for it. Empirical research suggests that organizations adopting a strategic planning approach outperform those without plans.
How can I start developing a strategic plan?
There are several strategic planning models out there. One I find helpful is outlined by public affairs scholars John Bryson and Bert George:
Your network’s strategic planning process may begin at any step labeled by a red dot. No matter where you live on the map above, there are some key actions to take when preparing your strategic plan:
1. Gather what you know.
If you are reading this, your network has likely already committed to strategic planning. After the agreement, bringing all the information required for quality strategic planning is essential. Gather your network’s mission statement, values, mandates, and bylaws. Identify the stakeholders who would need to be involved or affected by your network’s strategic plan. Understanding who would be involved in implementing, planning, and funding the strategy will best equip you to know who you need to persuade to buy into your strategic actions. Those individuals must be involved early and systematically in any strategic planning process.
2. Assess your network’s impact environment.
After gathering these documents, it’s time to do an assessment. The most common way to think about the information needed is to conduct a SWOT analysis—which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Challenges. The better quality information you gather to inform your evaluation strongly relates to how good your strategic plan will be. A SWOT analysis should be based on surveys, interviews, focus groups, an environmental scan, and other types of research.
A social impact network operates with internal efforts impacted by outside forces. In the internal environment, impact is made by acting on resources, present strategy, and current performance. Pinpointing where strengths and weaknesses lie in each can be critical to strengthening your network’s offerings.
The external environment presents forces generally outside the network’s control. These include trends, key resource controllers, competitors, and collaborators. What organizations offer services similar to yours and substitute programs and services? Can you leverage trends in the industry to make a substantial impact?
3. Brainstorm your network’s strategic issues.
Start by developing a list of all of your network’s strategic issues. I often use silent starts, post-it note harvesting, or similar techniques to gather as many divergent opinions as possible. After identifying a complete list of strategic issues, you need to limit the number of strategic issues you will address in the strategic plan. Key questions that you might answer to identify the most critical issues include:
- Does this issue threaten the core “business” of our nonprofit?
- Is this an operational issue or a strategic issue?
- Does this issue require immediate action, or can it be handled in the normal strategic planning cycle?
- Does this issue suggest an opportunity to be more effective or to scale our social impact significantly?
The answers to these questions will help your network identify the most important strategic issues foundational to the organization but not so urgent as to suggest immediate action is needed. Selecting more strategic issues is not better – the opposite is true. Research suggests that strategic plans with fewer strategic goals are more likely to achieve positive results.
4. Use your issues to inform your strategies.
After outlining your network’s strategic issues, you can counter them with strategies. In this case, strategies are how your network will attempt to meet your goals or mission. These need not be perfect or guarantee success. Instead, they are a well-estimated means by which success is possible.
Choosing strategies without careful research can lead to poor results, lost resources, and stakeholder doubt. So, it may be best to start by answering each strategic issue in several ways. Identify multiple options that may answer each question and note how each may or may not be a good fit, given your network’s identity and environments.
After this brainstorming session, to find the best fit for a strategic issue, choose the strategy(s) that are most plausible to implement. You can best understand which strategy works for your network’s goals by minimizing the degree of resistance to change and implementation, as shown below:
The answers to your strategic issues that are most balanced among the degree of participation by stakeholders, visibility of the outcome, and size and impact of the change may be best to implement for creating an impact that aligns with the network’s efforts.
5. Establish a vision to persuade your stakeholders to take action.
Most strategic plans are not implemented successfully; some research suggests that less than 30% are. Change is hard. However, I believe most strategic plans are not implemented because social impact leaders believe that when their board has adopted their strategic impact plan, they’ve crossed the finish line.
The board’s approval of a strategic plan is the middle of the race, not the end. Social impact leaders will need to spend an equivalent amount of time implementing the strategic plan as developing it.
Establishing a vision is one of the first steps in implementing a strategic plan. A great vision should be future-oriented and hopeful and help your stakeholders understand their roles in affecting a social impact. The vision should be the touchstone of why you are asking for action. Then, a great implementation plan develops a timeline for action, with key players identified and held accountable for moving it from plan to implementation.
6. Communicate to implement your strategies.
For a smooth implementation, a strategic plan must have buy-in from stakeholders. Using your network identity, environment, strategic issues, deliverables, and vision, you can develop communication strategies to implement your plan.
You can get started with the following activity:
- Describe how you would implement each strategy in response to your network’s strategic issues.
- Write the top-of-line rationale message for the network’s need to make these changes.
- Describe how you would communicate with each of your stakeholders about the implementation.
Once you’ve worked through the exercise, start to consider which communication model(s) will fit within your approach to stakeholder persuasion:
- The empirical-rational strategy assumes that stakeholders are rational and will adopt a change if it can be justified. Examples of this strategy include dissemination via presentation of the change’s benefits, education and one-to-many communication, and personnel selection and replacement.
- The power-coercive strategy focuses on political and economic sanctions to encourage compliance with mandated change or on the moral power of shame and guilt. Examples include unilateral action, pressure, and force.
- The normative-reeducative strategy relies on mutual persuasion within collaborative relationships. All individuals must participate in their reeducation and be involved in problem-solving toward change. Examples include delegating authority, fostering growth in those affected by the change, prototyping, and encouraging participation in the decision-making process toward change.
Identifying where these strategies fit into your messaging can help your communication persuade all your stakeholders toward a social impact.
7. Reassess the strategies and the process.
Regularly assessing your strategies can keep your network geared toward refining your efforts toward social impact. Usually, assessment is done during the implementation process by collecting objective data metrics. By analyzing your strategies’ performance, your network can decide whether more strategic planning or new strategies are necessary.
Knowing which metrics to prioritize is vital with so much data out there. O’Donovan and Flower of the Monitor Institute suggest reframing strategic data collection into the mindset of pattern recognition. In the end, data is just information. If your metrics aren’t informing you about your progress and next steps, it may be time to look elsewhere. When brainstorming strategies, remember to identify how to measure their success. Doing so can help boost efficiency in network capacity and effort.
My network has a strategic plan. What now?
A strategic plan can only help your network make an impact when it is the guiding light of your initiatives.
- Integrate your plan into your network board’s culture. Your strategic plan informs everything your network does, so keeping it in mind is essential. Consultant Alan Cantor suggests ensuring your board discusses the plan’s progress and next steps at every meeting. Doing so will require member dedication and consistent plan review.
- Involve staff and community voices. Your staff usually does the most direct work with your populations, so their voices are essential to understanding progress. CEO Ted Bilich offers ways to incorporate staff voices, including a “risk register” and client engagement techniques.
- Keep it breathing!. Don’t stop revisiting the plan—after all, it’s there to light your path. Walking in the dark every meeting can cause your network to stumble. Remember to use your success metrics to continue refining deliverables.
You’ve got this.
When your plan is complete, remember to stick to deadlines, gather feedback, notice patterns, and adapt to surprises. Every road has curves—keep your lights on and keep pushing on!
Want some extra guidance? You can book a consultation with me to develop your plan for a successful impact. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to learn how.