The NonProfit Strategy Revolution
Ever wonder what happened to the "strategy" in strategic plan?
If you have ever lost any sleep pondering how your supposedly strategic plan is going to address this current financial mess, then you will be overjoyed to find David La Piana's 2008 book, The NonProfit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World.
This little book (that comes with a very useful CD) offers a new way of creating a strategic plan that begins with the most important rule of all: Know Thyself.
The concept - once you get the hang of it - is very simple. Nonprofits consider strategy at three levels: organizational, programmatic, and operational. Bottom line is, if you can't (or won't) create organizational strategies (the big ones that will focus the direction of your nonprofit) then the programmatic and operational strategies won't really matter.
What is this elusive operational strategy? Simply put, organizational strategy "is about who and what the nonprofit is in the larger world. It is about organizational identity, direction, brand, and market position. It is also about the nonprofit's relationships, both competitive and collaborative, with other entities, whether for-profit, public or nonprofit."
Sound suspiciously like a business plan, or something that might have been influenced by the (gasp) FOR-profit world? Yep. And it's high time that nonprofits took advantage of all the good stuff out there in the wide world of business, rather than leaving it all to the MBA's!
This book is a complete, step-by-step guide to leading your nonprofit through a remarkable, insightful learning experience. Visit www.lapiana.org or www.fieldstonealliance.com for more information.
What Are People Saying About This Post?
Strategy... the word "strategic", and "planning", are so often used in so many ways that its hard to remember what they mean. A strategic plan is often an important part of an internal consensus building process, and a way for board and staff to understand that they have a shared mission and serves funders that need a document that actually speaks to what the institutional objectives are, but what after all is a strategic plan?
This smart, deliberate, thorough and practical book (the CD did not work on my Mac) has some very good ideas and process to offer.
A strategic plan is not unlike a business plan, after all, and is a report on what the organization wants to do and how it thinks to accomplish its priorities. It's the "how" to do it all, an ACTION plan, that is so hard to figure out of course; it's relatively easy to have a large and mixed group of staff, board members and influencers decide to change the world, but it never seems to happen unless there is an understanding about HOW to do it.
How to get to ACTION, in real-time, is so commendable... and a time honored and well-tested process is available in this book: suscinct, supportive and practicable. An hour well spent.
(... and what a fine Resource Center the CHC now offers! Smarter is better.)