Can you elaborate on last month’s article and help me understand the relationship between the fundraising plan and strategic plan?

In an article entitled “How Fundraising Flows from Strategic Planning” it states: “The key to raising money is control, which is, in turn, the summation of all management techniques within a particular charity. Control stems from comprehensive long range planning, which integrates every aspect of the charitable organization into a master blueprint whose objectives are all synchronized: a strategic organizational marketing plan.“

Have you ever seen those toy vehicles that motor toward a wall and then flip over and change directions when they hit a barrier? If it doesn’t respond to what’s blocking its path the tires will spin until its battery runs dead. That’s an image that I want my clients to remember. Organizations need to be nimble enough to assess challenges and adapt accordingly. Board members and leadership staff must invite and acknowledge feedback from stakeholders in order for the charity to stay relevant.

Some organizations are so focused on their need for money that they forget the good deeds that inspired their existence. They’re reactive by nature … succumbing to forces that buffet them about rather than being prepared ahead of time for the elements. Successful fundraising needs to be rooted in the mission of your charity and ongoing engagement of your constituents.

Young charities are usually driven by a passionate founder who wants to make a difference in the world. S/he recruits friends and family to be the inaugural board to help drive their cause forward. Without staff to delegate operations to, these individuals are often so busy doing that they fail to think through their actions and build the necessary infrastructure from which an effective and efficient organization can evolve.

The way consultants Bernard Ross and Clare Segal define strategic planning is the design of a desired future and effective ways of bringing that about. Simone Joyeaux says, “… good strategic planning is the process that determines your organization’s relevance, producing more than a roadmap that ensures everyone is on the same wavelength and where change is stimulated.“

Strategic plans inform fundraising priorities

To get back to your question…no one should attempt to fundraise without grounding your requests for support in the organization’s identified priorities! With about 80,000 charities across Canada there is stiff competition for funding. Therefore, you need to prove that your organization is viable. Donors, particularly of major gifts, are incredibly savvy. They have every right to ask your charity for its investment prospectus…the organization’s roadmap to its intended future.

Strategic planning is a process that helps the leadership make informed decisions, based on the facts at hand and potential situations. Most of us wouldn’t think of driving to an unknown destination without a map or GPS, so why would we run a charity, relying on other people’s money, without similar aids?

Strategic planning options

A basic way to identify your organization’s issues is to conduct an annual SWOT analysis. This exercise can be easily done by the chief executive or board chair who takes stock of Strengths and Weaknesses (primarily internal historical or present occurrences) and Opportunities and Threats (which assess external factors into the future). The broader you cast your net to collect feedback from various stakeholders, the more informed you’ll become. The question is…what do you intend to do with their advice? There’s no point inviting reactions if your organization isn’t prepared to make some changes.

The most effective plans embrace learning and change. Ideally, your organization has identified its core values and a willingness to grow and adapt is included in them. If your board is entrenched in “we’ve always done it this way,” your charity’s significance to its audiences will be seriously compromised in these rapidly changing times.

Jonquil Eyre, a colleague of mine once shared a thought-provoking question that’s an excellent way to stimulate exploring organizational options. “To get this right, what would be different?” The very act of posing this query ensures that change is necessary in order to rise above current limitations.

A facilitated approach

A strategic planning method I use with clients is to help them picture the organization five years from today. The “Vision” the board and senior staff identify together is articulated clearly in a series of phrases that they all agree upon. This is an inspiring exercise and wonderful way to build consensus amongst the team.

Once their dreams for a preferred future have been articulated, they must identify the barriers that stand in the way of their vision. This is a challenging exercise for everyone…after all, we are polite Canadians and it’s so much easier to come up with solutions before we’ve narrowed down the problem.

It’s not uncommon that a barrier is related to certain staff, board or volunteers. By setting the stage properly, the facilitator can draw out this information without blame being passed or feelings hurt. Regardless of how delicate this challenge may be, without identifying the issues that are holding the organization back we can’t come up with effective responses to address them.

When conducting this exercise, the most frequent response I hear to “what’s blocking us from achieving our vision?” is lack of money. I need to encourage team members to delve deeper than that superficial belief. Just think, if your charity received a multi-million dollar bequest tomorrow — would your board invest those funds wisely without a well-informed strategic plan?

In order to get to the crux of an issue, critical thinking encourages us to ask why at least three times (and ideally five). For instance…easiest response is (1) “lack of money”…why…(2) “because no one goes out and asks”…why…(3) “because they feel like it’s begging”…why…(4) “because they’ve never had any fundraising training”…why…(5) “because we focused more on volunteers who’d run the organization than those who could ensure its long-term sustainability.”

By having the discipline to dig down the board can better identify more effective responses. In this case, the last two “layers” unearthed the need to train board members for fundraising and start to recruit individuals more focused on governance than hands-on service delivery or management.

The next part of this facilitated process is to identify three or four Strategic Directions. These are over-arching statements that everyone agrees upon and are based on the priorities that have been identified in both the vision and barriers exercises. For very young organizations, they may only be in effect for 12-18 months whereas more mature charities might adopt them for 24-36 months. Once the board and senior staff have agreed on these directions together, all activities must flow from them.

So the final phase in this strategic planning facilitation is where the rubber really hits the road. The group needs to identify 6-12 month Action Steps. These are measurable goals based on each strategic direction that defines specifically what needs to be implemented — by whom and when — in order to hit the target.

Charities with staff members can delegate most of this work to the hired help but the board would monitor progress regularly. One way to achieve this objective is to ensure that the board and management agendas reflect the strategic plan.

For those charities without staff, duties still need to be divided and delegated. As I mentioned earlier, if board members are busying themselves with doing the work they can forget how important their role in governance is to the organization’s survival. The ideal is to expand your volunteer-base so that the unpaid staff can focus on the day-to-day operations and leave the strategic thinking and planning to the board. By so doing, you are preparing the team for when staff members can take on the work and honing board members’ governance skills.

To wrap up this month’s article The Free Management Library provides a helpful overview including:

Benefits of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning serves a variety of purposes in organizations, including to:

1. Clearly define the purpose of the organization and to establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that mission in a defined time frame within the organization’s capacity for implementation.
2. Communicate those goals and objectives to the organization’s constituents.
3. Develop a sense of ownership of the plan.
4. Ensure the most effective use is made of the organization’s resources by focusing the resources on the key priorities.
5. Provide a base from which progress can be measured and establish a mechanism for informed change when needed.
6. Listen to everyone’s opinions in order to build consensus about where the organization is going.

Other reasons include that strategic planning:

1. Provides clearer focus for the organization, thereby producing more efficiency and effectiveness.
2. Bridges staff/employees and the board of directors.
3. Builds strong teams in the board and in the staff/employees.
4. Provides the glue that keeps the board members together.
5. Produces great satisfaction and meaning among planners, especially around a common vision.
6. Increases productivity from increased efficiency and effectiveness.
7. Solves major problems in the organization.

Strategic planning is a rich enough topic for us to continue on this track for next month’s article so in the meantime…Plan the work and work the plan!

Cynthia Armour is a freelance specialist in fundraising and governance. A Certified FundRaising Executive (CFRE) since 1995, she volunteers as a subject matter expert with CFRE International. She works with boards and senior staff to ensure that strong leadership will enhance organizational capacity to govern and fundraise effectively. Contact Cynthia directly at 705-799-0636, e-mail answers@elderstone.ca, or visit www.elderstone.ca for more information about her services.

To submit a question for a future column, or to comment on a previous one, please contact editor@charityvillage.com. No identifying information will appear in this column.

Disclaimer: Advice and recommendations are based on limited information provided and should be used as a guideline only. Neither the author nor CharityVillage.com make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.