Strategic Planning Themes: A Look Back at the Past Few Years

This article was initially posted on Nonprofit Pro.

Spotify, the digital music service, has me looking forward to the end of the year. That's because it released Spotify Wrapped, a year-in-review that provides all kinds of interesting data points about its listeners as a whole and my listening habits as an individual. I find it fascinating to learn about how many minutes of music we listened to, as well as how many plays our favorite artists and songs had during the year.

This got me thinking about strategic planning themes — What are they? How could I identify them? How might they evolve year-to-year? Understanding themes and trends offers numerous benefits to you as a leader since they can help inform decisions and strategies.

I parsed through more than 10,000 rows of strategic plan elements (core components, such as mission, vision and values), focus areas and goals from more than 375 nonprofits across the last three years. I noted the most commonly used words (including synonyms) by finding keywords and reviewing their context and sequences. Here are the four common themes of strategic planning over the past few years that I identified.

1. A Focus on People

Nonprofits rightfully have a reputation of caring about living things. From people development to a focus on customers and stakeholders, that reputation is represented in strategic plans as many organizations focus on people through team development or stakeholders.

Professional Development

Nonprofits are dedicated to professional development both internally and externally. On many plans, organizations noted the need to find and offer professional development opportunities to their staff. Many are looking for conferences, seminars and other types of training to allow staff to strengthen their current skills or explore new areas of interest. Other nonprofits offer professional development opportunities as part of their programming to their constituents.

Vision statement examples include:

• Establish strong professional development programs for staff and board, improve internal operations systems, and provide sufficient wages and support for staff.

• Enable the team to meet professional development goals and create programs that they feel most passionate about and equipped for.

Goal statement examples include:

• Team members to identify two personal and professional development goals every year.

• Establish an annual professional development conference of directors in our network.
  

Board Development

Board development is another area of focus on many strategic plans. Nonprofits are focused on this group of people to ensure they have the skills, values and commitment to effectively execute their missions. Many plans mention the need to create board committees. Others are looking to expand their boards to find professionals with skills in the areas the organizations need.

Vision statement examples include:

• Build an engaged, supportive and capable board.

• Establish effective and efficient policies and procedures for the board of directors to fulfill the purpose of the organization, ensuring fulfillment to the organization's fullest potential.

Goal statement examples include:

• Complete board recruiting plan policy, including board selection criteria, plan for vetting members and creation of board orientation packet.

• Increase board membership to 12 with diversity of skills and demographics.
  

Programming

Perhaps the most focus on strategic plans is about programming and communication for customers and stakeholders. Nonprofits are focused on refining programs to meet the needs of their community. They are also looking to expand the ways they reach and communicate with their stakeholders and customers.

Vision statement examples include:

• Deliver distance learning and virtual training and advising with a personal touch. (Create programming with deep consideration to how the instruction is led.)

• Develop community-centric programming.

• Create, communicate, and deliver information regarding programs throughout the county.

Goal statement examples include:

• Develop a marketing campaign to grow the program attendees to 20 in each offering.

• Develop a financial plan that supports program expansion by the end of fall.

• Develop program evaluation process.
  

2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Diversity, equity and inclusion are top priorities among the nonprofits, and I know that there is still a lot of work to be done. A nonprofit’s strategic plan is a great place to document the work that you are dedicating to doing to advance these important values so that we can truly make sustainable changes and embody them.

Diversity themes in the review of strategic plans focus on bringing together a team of diverse individuals with different identities, qualities and backgrounds. Equity themes have many nonprofits reviewing all of their organizations’ policies, procedures and processes to determine how to help all people achieve the same level of success.

Strategic plans are also noting the importance of diverse groups having their voices heard in important aspects of the nonprofit. Some nonprofits have set a goal of creating committees of community members to hear their stories and plan to share that information across their marketing channels.

Other focuses of diversity, equity and inclusion in strategic plans include nonprofits creating initiatives, task forces and committees as a way of acknowledging the importance of DEI work and their dedication to creating institutional change.

Vision statement examples include:

• Increase the inclusivity and diversity of our events.

• Define and set a diversity goal for the board.

• We will identify, build and embrace the core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into all of our nonprofit’s operations, as well as model those values as we advance our mission.

Goal statements examples include:

• Review all policies, procedures, and processes to ensure compliance with our board-approved DEI statement.

• Create a community voice group to regularly gather community stories for sharing across our social and other marketing channels.

• Create and implement a DEI action plan, including an official statement and policy on DEI efforts within the organization.
  

3. Measurement and Analysis

The benefits of leveraging data are numerous so I’m thrilled that “measurement” and “analysis” were two words repeatedly used across focus areas and goals in my review of strategic plans. Measurements and data analysis can provide leaders with the information they need to make informed decisions about their nonprofits. Additional benefits include increased productivity and greater financial stability by discovering and cutting unnecessary costs.

A couple of the most common areas for measurement were fundraising, programming and performance.

Vision statement examples include:

• Implement a performance management system for driving and managing daily operations and for tracking overall organizational performance (that align with strategic direction.)

• Fundraising efforts will be more goal-oriented, such as identifying specific amounts to raise for scholarships, using donor database effectively and personally engaging with donors using list of needs, stats, impact statement and testimonials,

• Establish a small set of metrics to measure our impact.

Goal statement examples include:

• Address feedback from program participants to increase satisfaction ratings measurement of program leaders to eight out of 10.

• Document and reinforce values to increase positive ratings in culture survey results from our team.

• Focus on deepening relationships with donors to increase our direct donor fundraising by 15% in the next year.
  

4. Strategic Planning

Another interesting point to note is that many organizations have chosen to include strategic planning on their plan in some fashion. It’s a great way to emphasize the continued focus that nonprofits should have on the strategic planning process.

Nonprofits are using their strategic plans to set goals for their processes of creating and implementing their plans. Many note the ongoing cycle of strategic planning and include the need to create their next three- or five-year plans.

Other nonprofits are branching out and creating different strategic plans for other aspects of their organizations. For example, one nonprofit is expanding with regional centers, so it created a strategic plan for its “home base” as well as regional centers since they will have different goals.

Vision statement examples include:

• We will have institutionalized a process of regularly reviewing, revising and updating our plan in pursuit of our mission and vision.

• Installed a strategic planning process that is a part of our culture. It will be part of how we run the organization.

Goal statement examples include:

• Develop a strategy committee that is responsible for advising in the development and implementation of strategies consistent with our mission and strategic plan.

• Establish an annual strategic planning cycle, to include quarterly reviews. Send meeting invitations to team members for the year.

• Plan semi-annual strategic planning and development meetings with the entire staff and board.
  

Key Takeaway and Next Step

Some of these themes are consistent year to year. I regularly see topics, such as fund development, communication and marketing, and programs, included on strategic plans. This isn’t surprising because they are at the heart of most nonprofits. However, the actions and tactics for each topic may change and evolve over time.

The use of social media, for example, is increasingly being represented on strategic plans as part of a nonprofit’s broader communication and outreach plans. What went from “use social media” is now a more sophisticated and detailed action plan such as analyzing engagement on social media platforms, creating a posting calendar and using social media to increase outreach efforts to constituents for a specific event or program.

It’s important to both know the information and to use it. I encourage you to review these themes and compare and contrast it with your own nonprofit’s strategic plan. If this information is represented in your strategic plan, how should it evolve over time? If not, should it be? I can’t wait to see what you do next and the themes that emerge next year.

5 Tips to Turn Data Management into Meaningful Action

“Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”

~ Mark Twain

Nonprofits in Mark Twain’s day had nowhere near the amount of data available to them that organizations do today, yet Twain’s thought is still relevant today. With so much information available, it’s relatively easy to collect a ton of data and have it pile up rather than use it to contribute to meaningful action.

Data science has advanced greatly, allowing nonprofits to harness it for good. However, using data to its fullest potential remains a challenge. Many nonprofits miss opportunities among their data and, instead, merely “collect” it.

If you’re ready to transform data management into meaningful action, the below tips are for you.

1. Personalize Your Interactions

Relationships are a core part of the success of any nonprofit. You need to build strong relationships with donors, stakeholders, and the community to attract the assistance and funding you need to meet your mission.

One thing data can help you to do better is personalize your interactions. You have access to a whole host of information about your donors and key stakeholders; you can use it for more impactful messaging.

For example, you might personalize messages based on the actions of donors, initiatives they have participated in, or even major events in their lives. Donor intelligence software can provide information such as real estate sales, inheritances, and affinity with a particular cause. You can find information on people’s interests and participation in various causes or activities. Any of this information can be a useful opener to a more personalized approach.

If you can personalize your interactions, they become much more meaningful and powerful messages. People tend to respond better when messages are relevant to them, and they can feel that your nonprofit is trying to get to know them better. 

2. Inform Your Strategic Plan

Data can also help inform your strategic plan.

For example, you may want to gather information on how your nonprofit is perceived through assessments or surveys. When you have a good idea of how your organization is perceived, you can use that information to help inform your long-term plans. In this particular example you may find that people have some misconceptions about your organization. A long-term vision should be to turn that perception around, drawing in more donors and volunteers.

Your strategic plan should be supported by your data collection. It should have your goals and action items to help you get there. Some examples of data that can inform your strategic plan include:

• Donor profiles.

• Information about potential untapped sources of funds.

• Information about how you are perceived vs. how you’d like to be perceived.

• Marketing campaign data. For example, what has been successful vs. unsuccessful?

• Market/economic information and trends.

• Data on the impact of your organization’s initiatives.

3. Identify Key Metrics

As a nonprofit leader it’s possible that you’ve been asked, “How do you measure the success of your organization?” That’s where “key metrics” come in. 

As we wrote about, an organization’s key metrics are three to five high-level measures that indicate your organization’s overall success. Examples of these metrics are:

• Tons of CO2 reduced

• Number of senior citizens participating

• Reduction in cancer rate

Some of your metrics may be “output” metrics like number of students served or number of legislators engaged. Other metrics may be “outcome” metrics like a percent increase in literacy or number of families that transition out of poverty. Whatever type of metric you use, they should provide an indicator of the overall success of your organization. 

The data that you collect across your organization can be used to help you identify what key metrics are the most relevant.

4. Continuously Improve Performance

Data helps nonprofits improve the monitoring and implementation of organizational efforts, helping drive a culture of constantly improving performance. Predictive analytics can help you accurately measure effectiveness so you can tailor future efforts.

For example, educational institutions can look at data on their student’s past performance or coursework, giving them a better idea of who may be in danger of dropping out before graduating.

Food banks can use predictive analytics to determine the need for food and how to find donors who could help meet that need. They can use this to stay on top of the need, so they don’t fall short at crucial times. All sorts of data can come into this equation; the state of the economy, downsizing at local companies, disaster events, and more.

The Nonprofit Council also states: “... it's important also to communicate what you are discovering and use those lessons to continuously improve performance."

"Whether your nonprofit engages in formal 'evaluation,' monitors progress towards specific goals, or uses feedback loops to learn what's working and what's not, each of these activities is a type of 'performance measurement.'"

5. Hone Your Marketing Campaigns

“Data are just summaries of thousands of stories—tell a few of those stories to help make the data meaningful.”

~ Dan Heath, bestselling author

This is a great point to wrap up our tips. Data is essential to determine meaningful action, but never forget the human element or the stories behind that data. In the case of nonprofit marketing, this is how you will create more impactful campaigns.

People connect with the human stories behind your data, for one thing. They want to know your overall results, along with the real tales of how you’ve made an impact.

You can also use data to better target your campaigns toward those most likely to respond to those stories. Data on people’s affinity with your cause and ability to donate will help you target those with a high likelihood of donating. This can be a cost savings for tight marketing budgets, getting better results through approaching fewer people.

Conclusion: Data Is Not Enough

Data is meaningless without taking action based on the knowledge you gain.

From a Mission Met perspective, simply having information is not enough. Without meaningful action, data is irrelevant. What actions will you take so your nonprofit can make the most impact?

A strategic plan is a way to link goals with long-term plans. Use the data you collect to determine where you are and where you want to be. The obstacles you face between those two should be your goals on a strategic plan.