Why Some Strategic Plans are Doomed from the Start: From Eric Ryan's Upcoming Book

Later this year I’ll publish my upcoming book, Mission Met: Proven Strategic Planning Guidance to Help You Build a Financially Secure and Impactful Nonprofit. The book will provide you with a suite of practical strategic planning practices that I’ve learned in over two decades of working with nonprofit leaders.

In this blog entry, the third in a five-article series, I’ll share a brief preview of some of my guidance in the book.

The #1 Problem with Strategic Planning

In my work as a planning consultant, I’ve learned that poor execution is, by far, the number one problem with nonprofit strategic planning.

Research conducted by TCC Group, a social impact consulting firm, supports this. They found that “the biggest challenge that nonprofits face with capacity building is implementing the often first-rate strategies that are devised.”

Additional research in the Harvard Business Review involving employees at more than 1,000 companies, government agencies, and nonprofits in over fifty countries indicated that three out of five organizations were weak at execution.

The bottom line is that creating a strategic plan isn’t typically a problem. Executing it is.

In my book I describe, chapter by chapter, the common barriers that get in the way of executing a plan. Two of those barriers are:

• You view planning as an event, and

• Your plan is too complex 

I’ll briefly review each of these.

You View Planning as an Event

Perhaps this sounds familiar... 

You and your team would like to achieve some important goals, so you say, “We’re going to create a strategic plan.” 

You get excited because it’s something new and you likely get some immediate positive results. 

But after a few short weeks or months, you and your team become bored by the plan, you get distracted by other pressing issues, and the plan gets shelved. In the end, you don’t hit your goals, you lose some faith in strategic planning, and you’re less likely to do it again. 

Essentially, your failure was doomed from the beginning, since you and your team viewed strategic planning as an event, as a moment in time. You didn’t internalize, from the beginning, that real success took more than creating a plan.

As described in this blog article, instead of thinking of planning as an event, we approach it as an ongoing process called the CAPE Cycle. Approaching strategic planning as a cycle will help you and your team design and implement the critical steps to execute your plan.

While thinking of strategic planning as an ongoing process is essential, your efforts can still be doomed if your plan is too complicated. 

Your Plan is Too Complex

Several years ago, I came across a strategic planning document that got my attention. The plan was spiral bound, forty-two pages, and full of lovely photographs of children running through fields of grass and flowers. It was well organized and quite attractive. 

However, there was one major problem with the plan: it was utter overkill.

The plan was for a tiny nonprofit that had a $25,000 annual budget and one very part-time executive director. The well-meaning consultants who facilitated the effort were used to working with municipalities and, as such, led the organization through an overly complex process that engaged nearly ninety stakeholders. The plan included thirteen major strategies and took over six months to finalize. 

Over the ensuing years, I tracked the organization to see if the plan helped to strengthen the organization’s programs and impact. Tragically—but not surprisingly—the plan never got any traction, and the nonprofit continues to limp along, struggling financially and programmatically.

Given the challenges that a complex plan creates, I’ve worked throughout my career to find a practical strategic plan framework that would work for executive directors and their teams. By trial-and-error, I’ve arrived at this simple two-section structure that is easy to understand and communicate:

• Section One: Our Compass

• Section Two: Our Actions
  

The Compass section serves as an organizational “North Star” and remains relatively unchanged from year to year. Elements of the Compass may include:

• A mission statement

• A vision statement

• Core values

• Key metrics
  

Section two, Our Actions, contains a small set of:

• Focus areas (e.g., programs, fund development, board engagement, operations, etc.), including a three-year vision 

• Goals that support the vision for each focus area (Goals should be for several weeks to a year in length.)

• Short-term action items that support each goal
  

As noted in the “focus areas” bullet above, a key part of section two is establishing a three-year organizational vision for each of the three focus areas. The three-year vision provides guidance for each of the goals and is essential for creating a more strategic plan and not just a list of tactical goals.

Utilizing a simple plan format as part of an ongoing planning cycle will help you to ensure that you and your team will find success in executing your plan. 

8 Nonprofit Interview Questions

Every nonprofit needs leaders, go-getters, and people passionate about the mission. Getting those kinds of people into your organization, however, can be a real challenge.

Hiring new staff can be stressful. Identifying needs, recruiting candidates, and selecting the right person takes a ton of effort and resources, not to mention the time demanded of the people doing the hiring. All of this culminates around the interview.

Interviewing gives you a chance to see how the candidate fits with the organization. After seeing a resume and having a few conversations, you have to make a decision: is this the best available person who can help the nonprofit accomplish its vision?

What happens in the interviews matters. A lot.

Successful interviews require good questions. The more the you know about the candidate, the more you can draw from when making their decision.

We want to help you ask questions that will produce insightful answers from your candidates, so we’ve put together eight interview questions that will strengthen your organization’s hiring process.

1. What, specifically, are you drawn to in our mission?

Your nonprofit's mission is the backbone of the organization, and every potential employee should also care about the things the organization cares about. Something in the mission needs to resonate with the candidate if they’re going to fit, so go ahead and just ask them directly what that is.

This kind of question also provides the interviewer with a chance to gather additional information about the candidate. Some may show up to the interview with little knowledge about the mission while others may be able to articulate it perfectly. The latter demonstrates a drive to dig deeper and shows their level of interest in the specific organization, not just in a potential job.

2. Why do you want to work in the nonprofit sector?

This is an easy question to get the interview started, especially for candidates who come from the private sector. Few people just coincidentally apply for nonprofits. They usually have a reason. Giving them space to explain that reason could help the candidate settle some of those early-interview nerves so they can more comfortably (and honestly) answer the others.

The question is more than just an icebreaker, though. The interviewer has a chance to hear what draws them to the nonprofit space. Really consider the candidate’s response. Are they just bored with their current situation or are they excited about nonprofit work? How long has their passion lasted? What motivated their interest? The candidate will likely address all these secondary questions in their answer, and the interviewer can ask follow-ups if necessary.

3. Tell me about some nonprofits you support or admire. Why?

Most people who apply for nonprofit jobs typically share some sort of passion for change. By asking this question, the interviewer gets a sense of what issues that candidate cares about. As they respond, the interviewer can assess whether those values align with the organization’s mission in some way.

The question also gives the candidate a chance to showcase their awareness of the nonprofit sector as a whole. If they can’t name an organization they support or even admire, it’s safe to say that they’re not entirely in tune with the sector as a whole. On the other hand, if the person can quickly provide a thoughtful answer, the interviewer can assume that they have made some prior investment in the nonprofit world.

4. Describe a volunteer experience that meant something to you.

Even if the candidate has never worked in the nonprofit sphere, volunteer experience can give the organization insight into the kinds of issues the candidate is passionate about and the work that they’ve participated in before applying. Watching the way the person talks about their experience gives the interview a chance to see them speak freely about their passions. If their passions align well with the organization’s, you can assume the candidate’s excitement would transfer into their job as well.

5. How would your experiences and skills help our organization accomplish its vision?

Every interviewer for every job wants to hear the candidate talk about how their skills can help the organization succeed. That’s nothing new, but there is something unique about asking this question in the nonprofit sphere.

First, it helps the interviewer see the candidate’s familiarity with the organization’s goals. The more they can talk about the vision, the more likely it is that they have studied up on the organization and care about the direction it's headed.

Second, the interviewer has a chance to see how the candidate sees themselves as part of that vision. This is critical because of the collaborative nature of nonprofit work. Employees are not meant to just fill-in gaps. They work to move the organization closer to its goals. Candidates who express how their gifts can uniquely help accomplish this could have an advantage on those who can’t quite see their skill sets fitting into the nonprofit.

6. What do you think are the key challenges facing nonprofits today?

Nonprofit employees encounter all sorts of challenges on a day-to-day basis. As rewarding and fulfilling as the job can be, overcoming roadblocks is a daily task.

Having candidates consider this question allows the organization to see whether they consider the issues they may encounter. It also shows how much the candidate stays aware of trends and changes within the industry.

This question can be particularly helpful when hiring for potential leaders because those are the people who will need to help the organization and their departments respond appropriately when challenges do arise. Knowing that the candidate looks ahead can give you confidence that they will prepare for what is coming as opposed to responding in the moment.

7. Tell me about a professional experience that didn’t go according to plan. How did you react and improvise?

Anyone who has worked in the nonprofit world knows the need for flexibility and adaptation, especially in smaller organizations. People often wear multiple hats and juggle various responsibilities. It may not be the best fit for those who prefer structure, singular responsibilities, and predictability.

Requesting a story when the candidate had to be flexible enables the interviewer to see how they responded to the challenge. Maybe the sudden change excited them, or maybe it stressed them out to the point of becoming unproductive. Maybe their experience landed somewhere in between, but whatever the case, the response can help the interviewer consider the candidate’s level of comfort with unpredictable moments.

8. Can you tell us about an experience you had contributing to a team?

Collaboration is key for nonprofit work, and seeing “team player” on the candidate’s resume doesn’t quite give you enough information to make an informed decision. Inviting them to tell a story will give you an idea of how they actually operate within a team.

The stories enable interviewers to identify what kind of team player the candidate is. Does their story exhibit any leadership qualities? Do they mainly talk about accomplishing tasks someone else assigns? These subtle details can help the organization see what kind of role the candidate fits into, even if it’s not the initial one they applied for.

Less experienced candidates may not have a wealth of professional examples, so interviewers can encourage them to consider other areas of collaboration, like school projects, humanitarian service, or volunteer experiences.

Final Thoughts

Sourcing new staff members for your organization is always a challenging task. You can use all sorts of skills and techniques from other industries, but certain aspects of the interview will uniquely apply to the nonprofit sector.

Getting the interview right will save you from frustrations and challenges later on. Doing the hard work of asking good questions will provide you with insight into the candidate’s passion so you can make the most informed decisions, and the eight questions we listed above will give you a solid place to start.

How a Co-Champion Can Transform Your Strategic Planning Effectiveness: From Eric Ryan's Upcoming Book

I’m thrilled to tell you that later this year I’ll publish my upcoming book, Mission Met: Proven Strategic Planning Guidance to Help You Build a Financially-Secure and Impactful Nonprofit. The book will provide you with a suite of practical strategic planning practices that will help you and your team better execute your strategic plan. 

This blog post, about the power of co-champions in the planning process, represents the second article in a five-article series where I’ll share a brief preview of some of the guidance that I provide in the book. 

The Benefit of a Fitness Partner

Imagine that it is 5:30 AM on a Friday morning. Your alarm goes off to get you up for an early morning jog. It’s cold outside, you’re tired from a long week, and you end up turning the alarm off and going back to sleep. In other words, the short-term discomfort of an early-morning rise got in the way of your ultimate desire to be physically fit. 

Now imagine a slightly different scenario. The setting is the same, but this time you’re supposed to meet your jogging partner, Wendy, at 5:45 on the corner a block away to run together. In this case, you get out of bed, put your running gear on, and fulfill your commitment to Wendy. As usual, Wendy is on time, and the two of you laugh about wanting to go back to sleep but not wanting to let each other down. 

After your run, you feel good about yourself, your friendship with Wendy, and have more energy for the day ahead. 

The difference between these two scenarios is obvious: Wendy’s accountability and partnership was what propelled you to act.

Now, let’s create a similar set of scenarios regarding strategic planning. 

The Benefit of a Strategic Planning Co-Champion

It’s 9 AM on a Friday morning, and you have an important grant application due by 5 PM. At 9:30 AM you have a one-hour block on your calendar to work on your organization’s strategic plan. It’s been a long week and you haven’t been able to focus on the grant as much as you’d like. You decide to blow off your strategic planning time and work on your grant instead. You don’t end up rescheduling your strategic planning work, and as a result, your plan doesn’t get the attention it needs. 

Now imagine a slightly different scenario. The setting is the same, but this time during your 9:30 block you’re scheduled to review the plan with your administrative assistant, Maurice. You want to set a good example, and despite the pressure you feel from the grant deadline, you maintain your commitment to meet with him. 

After the two of you meet, you feel good about your leadership and you’re reminded, yet again, about the value of regularly reviewing and measuring progress on your organization’s plan. Plus, you ended up getting Maurice to help you with the grant application and you easily beat the 5 PM deadline. 

Like the jogging scenario, having a person who serves as an accountability partner made all the difference. 

In the world of strategic planning, we call this partner a “co-champion”. 

Over the years, I have become a huge fan of the co-champion model. Having a co-champion significantly increases accountability to the process, improves results, and, frankly, just makes planning a lot more enjoyable. 

Employing this one practice significantly increases the odds that your planning process will be well-executed.

In a recent conversation with Laura Anderson, an expert in co-leadership models, she agreed, saying, “We all have unique individual strengths, but even the best leaders are still a single human. Having an effective pair—somebody who complements you and adds to or multiplies your value because your collaboration is so effective—is when you start to see so much opportunity.”

the MVP of the Planning Process

I’ve seen many people effectively serve as a co-champion with the executive director: the board chair, programs officer, development director, etc. 

That said, the most successful co-champions have often been administrative assistants. In this model, the executive director keeps an eye on the big picture, while the assistant focuses on the mechanics of measuring and tracking the plan. Further, administrative assistants often feel a strong sense of pride in being called upon for such an important organizational role. They take their responsibility seriously and the organization benefits as a result. 

In nearly all cases where I’ve seen an administrative assistant play the co-champion role, they evolved to be the MVP of the planning process. 

Sometimes I’ll observe executive directors who are hesitant to select an assistant as a co-champion out of fear of setting them up for failure. This can be a missed opportunity. Instead, use the co-champion role as a “vote of confidence” that empowers the assistant to develop their leadership. Further, this assignment serves as a great weather balloon to predict your assistant’s potential for future leadership.

A Nonprofit's Guide to Remote Working Success

Remote work was already growing before the COVID-19 pandemic made it a necessity, and it seems like it’s here to stay.

One 2019 study estimated that 70% of workers would utilize remote work in some capacity by 2025. Then came the shutdowns, where nearly every industry embraced remote work. Now, even as vaccines have increased and things move back towards normalcy, the trend seems unlikely to stop.

Even organizations that prefer an office space may struggle to get their workers on board. More and more employees prefer remote work, going as far as taking pay cuts to stay out of the office.

These changes pose unique problems in the nonprofit sphere, where teams rely on building a culture and committing to a vision together. Remote work can feel isolating and may make it difficult to keep teams aligned, but with a few subtle changes, nonprofits can embrace remote work without hindering their productivity, mission, or efficiency.

Utilize the Right Tools for Meetings and Collaboration

Anyone who worked in 2020 (or accessed the internet, or turned on a television, or just about anything else) heard about Zoom. A relatively unfamiliar platform before the pandemic became commonplace for workers across the country along with apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts.

Each of these help organizations host meetings and collaborate with teammates. Video meetings help people feel more connected than emails or phone calls because of face-to-face interaction. Likewise, the ability to quickly ping somebody with a specific need through instant messaging enables more seamless collaboration, even when everyone is far apart.

These types of big brands aren’t the only tools that make remote work successful, though. Lots of smaller, more niche players can support organizations with specific challenges surrounding remote work like connecting with donors, managing projects, or keeping your team aligned.

Project Management Tools

A separated workforce can lead to missed details and reminders. Tools like Trello, Asana, Monday, or ClickUp help organizations keep their teams on track so all the best work gets done at the right time.

This can prove particularly fruitful for nonprofits because of all the various tasks to track and manage throughout the organization. The whole staff has lots of work to balance. Keeping a todo list in the Notes App will only get you so far. Project management tools like these empower organizations to keep calendars, boards, timelines, and other visualizations that help your teams get work done.

Strategic Planning Software

Managing the strategic plan has always been necessary for nonprofits, but the rise of remote work makes team alignment even more important. A strategic planning software helps your organization stay focused on its mission and accomplish its goal.

Mission Met Center works in this way, functioning a home for all things related to an organization's strategic planning. Pulling from over 20 years of experience planning and implementing strategies, we built a simple platform specifically for nonprofits that enables your organization to...

• Simplify workflows by having the most important info in one secure place

• Keep teams aligned and accountable

• Access key reports and track insightful data

• Ensure your organization stays on mission all the time

Utilizing remote workers doesn’t have to cause misalignment. Keeping everyone focused and on task will empower your organization to fulfill its mission. This starts with the right set of tools.

Don’t Neglect Engagement or Encouragement

Separated workers can quickly become isolated workers, but they don’t have to be. Executive directors and other leaders can find creative ways to keep themselves and their staff members connected.

Engaging Employees

A lot of organizations are very stressed and discouraged right now. Team members are overworked and trying hard to stand firm to the mission, but continuing to push through all the time has its challenges. Executive directors know this more than most. That’s why they are uniquely positioned to make a difference.

Some practices involve simple changes to daily rhythms. Encourage everyone to keep their cameras on during meetings. Schedule a few minutes of catching up before getting into the nitty gritty. Implementing these small elements can boost morale and keep people united.

More intentional check-ins can help as well. When organizational leaders make an effort to check in with employees, when they ensure everyone has the means and support to complete their work, they show that they care for their workers. This can help establish or maintain personal relationships amongst the team members and make disconnected workers feel part of something again.

Encouragement for Executive Directors

As much as organizational leaders want to and should make sure employees get taken care of, it’s important that they don’t neglect their own wellbeing, either.

Social media can be a great place for executive directors to get active with other industry leaders through groups and forums. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter offer ways to stay connected with those in your organization or people beyond it, too. A lot of executive directors and board members have found support and ideas for how to run their organizations through these kinds of digital networking opportunities with other nonprofit leaders.

If the relationship allows for it, executive directors can also reach out to specific board members for support. Keeping a regular phone call or video conference on the calendar can help ensure that no one gets burnt out or too overwhelmed.

Keep Documents and Information Secure

Security risks are the dark underbelly of remote work and can cause real problems for any nonprofit.

Organizations naturally have less control over their staff’s device usage and practices, making them vulnerable to cyber attacks. Since nonprofits often deal with sensitive information, this can be particularly alarming.

While no security strategy is perfect, a few simple changes can help reduce risks.

Consult with an IT Professional

Larger organizations may have an IT team in place ready to help, but if you’re like most nonprofits, that concept is a distant dream that you know won’t happen soon.

The good news is that you don’t need a full tech team to give advice on setting up your remote workforce for success. Most IT professionals can answer the big questions quickly and help you get started. You might outsource this work to a consulting firm, or you can also utilize your network to see if anyone can donate their time and expertise.

Supplying Devices

Letting remote workers utilize personal devices can cause big problems for a nonprofit because of the security risks involved. That’s why more leaders across industries are supplying their team with work-specific mobile devices to heighten security protocols and bring back some of the control found in an office environment.

Obviously, this can be a hefty cost, but supplying devices doesn’t have to mean getting everyone the nicest laptop possible. Cheaper options do exist. They might not have all the perks of a really nice device, but all the major players – Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Google – have noticed and responded to the need for workable, mobile devices that can get the job done.

Utilizing the Cloud

Secure cloud storage may be the simplest step in keeping your organization’s information safe. Saving items to desktops or sending information through personal email won’t cut it. Those areas are notoriously insecure in cyberspace.

Organizations can instead encourage their staff to utilize cloud networks like Google drive or file sharing sites like Dropbox to send sensitive information. This may take a bit of training and adapting at first, but in the long run, it will save you from a ton of headaches.

Accessing VPNs

It’s almost inevitable that remote workers will work within insecure networks. Coffeeshops, libraries, and even some at-home internet setups create unsafe places to send, store, and receive information.

A virtual private network (VPN) allows the user to set up a secure connection between themselves and the internet anywhere in the world. By connecting to it, you equip your data with a sort of invisible, encrypted safety shield that protects from potentially harmful attacks.

Best Practices for Passwords

The fact is that most people don’t know how susceptible their passwords are to cyber attacks, but a few tips can help bolster security.

• Reset your password often

• Don’t reuse the same password for all sites

• Use a longer password that is hard to guess

• Don’t store your passwords on your phone or personal device

These best practices reduce the potential for password-stealing and can go a long way in keeping your information safe.

Embrace the Change

All signs point to a future of remote workers, and forward-thinking nonprofits have a unique opportunity to get out ahead of the change by learning to embrace it.

By implementing some of these practices, organizations of any size can continue to have organizational success with their remote workers.

The Power of Co-Leadership: A Conversation with Laura Andersen of LeadingX2

Recently, Mission Met’s co-founders, Eric Ryan and Ricky Chilcott had a conversation with Laura Andersen of LeadingX2. She and her business partner, Dan Mulhern, started LeadingX2 to promote and support the idea of shared leadership. The company provides coaching for co-leaders to cultivate success in leadership pairs. (You can watch Dan’s TED talk here.)

The following is an excerpt from the conversation, where Laura discusses the importance of co-leadership, how that applies to Mission Met’s experience, and how that is relevant to the nonprofit sector. Check out the video above to listen to the whole conversation. 

Q: Could you share with us a little bit about your role at LeadingX2 and what you specialize in?

A: I joined with Dan Mulhern about two years ago to be LeadingX2, and the impetus for it was that I've always really enjoyed working with people who view me as an equal partner, no matter where we are on the org chart. When I spoke with Dan about my philosophy of leadership, it became very apparent very quickly that we were aligned. I found someone who has three decades of work experience on me who's going to treat me as an equal partner, and I thought, “Wow, that is special and rare, and I cannot say no to this.” 

Key pairs don’t necessarily need to be any particular position on the org chart, it just needs to be two people who work together closely. Half of what we do around our coaching is self-awareness. We figure out where folks are in their own understanding of themselves and their strengths, and also their strengths as a pair. After they’re aware of their dynamic and they’ve had some conversations to clarify or improve their partnership, there's also this newfound awareness of the way that you present to your organization and to outsiders in order to bring your vision and mission to life. 

Q: You talk about how it doesn’t necessarily have to be co-leaders; instead, you use the word “pairs.” Did you always approach it this way, or was that something that you found through your work?

A: I would say it includes, but isn't limited to, people who are leaders by their title. The key is that they have things that they’ve articulated that are common goals and aspirations between them.

Q: At Mission Met, we work specifically with nonprofits. Do you think the concept of co-leadership is different for the nonprofit space than for other sectors?

A: It depends. Similar power dynamics can appear in any organization no matter what the business model is. At the end of the day, this is about communication, clarity of personal values, and self-awareness. That inherently improves work in any sector. 

As for nonprofits, we often see lofty, amazing visions and missions. Some people are out there trying to do everything needed to bring that vision to life. What can be helpful with a key pair is recognizing that you’re just a piece of that vision and it’s not all on your shoulders. Learning how to leverage someone with complementary strengths can be a microcosm. It teaches the courage to contribute everything you can and the humility to recognize when you really need someone else's contributions. 

Q: In our strategic planning model, we use the term “co-champion,” and we find that really successful co-champions are the executive director and an administrative assistant — or something like that. Do you see a trend in a dynamic like that being successful?

A: Absolutely. Titles aside, what you're describing are two really complementary skill sets. There’s one person — the CEO or ED — who is a verbal communicator, and they tend to be more public-facing and inspirational. Then there’s someone who understands the operational side and wants to execute on their vision. 

The executive director has positional power in order to make sure that something gets done. The executive assistant can bring the lens of details, execution, breaking things down, and how to accomplish the work. 

We all have unique individual strengths, but even the best leaders are still a single human. Having an effective pair—somebody who complements you and adds to or multiplies your value because your collaboration is so effective—that's when you start to see so much opportunity.

I love that you've already seen that taking place in so many organizations, and I'm particularly encouraged to hear of people who do have a lot of positional power, who fully acknowledge and embrace that someone who may not have the positional power on the organization chart is indispensable. It puts a necessary presence and can be a key ingredient to the success of the organization. 

Q: Once a pair recognizes that they are a key to the organization, what is a good next step so that these individuals can have a conversation and bring their individual assets to life? 

A: My piece of advice is: where you think you know, decide not to know for a minute, and ask a question instead. 

Instead of assuming that you know that you and your partner have similar visions, that you know their strengths and weaknesses, that you know what you do that annoys them, ask! 

Even if you think you know, it’s worth asking again – an open-ended question about a topic that you may have talked about previously is always worth revisiting, and that's because we are not static beings. Our perspectives aren't static, either. Circling back can add value in a lot of different ways to your relationship. 

Q: Where can people find more about the work that you and Dan are doing?

A: We are online at www.leadingx2.com. Or, feel free to shoot us an email. We're very relational people, hence the work that we're in. Even better than looking at our website, we'd love to just talk to folks. So, you can either find me on LinkedIn as Laura Andersen, or you can shoot me an email at laura@leadingx2.com.

Impactful Mission and Vision Statements

Defining the Mission and Vision Statements

It’s true. If you take ten different planning consultants and ask them to define what a mission and vision statement is, you’ll get eleven different answers. 

Bottom line, there are a lot of different mission and vision statement definitions floating around out there.  

What’s important, however, is that you and your team share a common definition. 

Based on years of working with organizations about what works, I’ve arrived at the following definitions:

• Mission Statement – One succinct and somewhat timeless sentence that states what your organization does and for whom. 

• Vision Statement – One succinct, inspirational, and somewhat timeless sentence that describes what "the world" will look like when your organization succeeds at its mission.

Importantly, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the mission and vision. You want to be able to say that “if we succeed at our mission, then our vision is more likely to happen.” 

Given this interrelationship, you can’t write a mission and vision statement in isolation from each other. They are two parts of a whole. 

Note that a key element of each definition is that each statement is only one sentence. One-sentence statements will:

• Be easier to remember. 

• Help you and your team focus on the absolute essentials.

• Serve as clear filters for making organizational decisions. 

Real-world Examples

In the following table are some real-world examples of mission and vision statements. 

In the mission statements, words that are bold describe what the organization does and words in italics describe the subject/persons that are the organization’s focus.

Note how each of the vision statements are pretty lofty and inspirational. In fact, those vision statements could even be the same vision for another organization. That's ok. They’re meant to inspire and capture the ultimate picture – however lofty – of what "the world" will look like when you succeed at your mission.

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If you’re looking for practical, focused guidance to leverage your nonprofit strategic planning, check out Mission Met: Proven Strategic Planning Guidance to Help You Build a Financially-Secure and Impactful Nonprofit – to be released October 2021.

Understanding the Key Responsibilities of Your Board

A well-operating board is one of the most vital elements of success for a nonprofit. The board works closely with the executive director to ensure everything stays on mission and is aligned with the vision. 

This is easier said than done, though. 

Each board has its own minor differences. Specifics differ depending on the organization’s size, maturity, mission, and goals. This can make it difficult for executive directors to know exactly what to expect from their board specifically. 

The more the executive director can understand their board’s key responsibilities, the better chance the organization has at maximizing success.

We want to help you develop that level of understanding for your organization, so we’ve outlined 5 key responsibilities of successful nonprofit boards. 

1. Ensure a Documented Strategy

The board has a responsibility to ensure the organization has a documented strategic plan that gets implemented in the best way possible. We believe that this is the board’s most important responsibility since it provides a foundation for all that the nonprofit does. 

The board's engagement with strategic planning varies from organization to organization. A small nonprofit with minimal staffing may have a working board that gets actively involved in executing the plan while a larger, more established board may strictly provide oversight and support as the staff executes the plan.

To be clear, the board doesn’t have to create the strategic plan. They’re only responsible for ensuring that a documented strategy exists and is used.

The strategic plan itself will often vary in detail, size, and duration depending upon the nonprofit. Some organization’s have a one-page, one-year plan that works perfectly well. Others have a more developed, long-term document that provides more detail. It really depends on where the organization is in its lifecycle. Our guidance is to keep the plan and strategy as focused and practical as possible so that it can be most effectively utilized. 

2. Provide Governance 

The executive director handles the organization’s day-to-day operations, but the board functions as an overall governing body. They act as overseers of the entire organization and take collective responsibility for what goes on within it. This starts with establishing, updating, and upholding the organization’s bylaws, a set of documented rules that help set the foundation for the board’s governance. 

The bylaws function as a type of internal list of rules and regulations for governing the nonprofit. Having them in place helps the organization operate with ethical and legal integrity. The board ensures that the organization adheres to the bylaws, and they are responsible for reviewing and updating the bylaws as necessary. 

The board can also help with organizational risk mitigation. The executive director and staff can easily get caught up in putting out the fires that naturally occur in their roles. They don’t always have the time, experience, or energy to look at the big picture and see potential pain points in processes or in the organization as a whole. The board can fill this gap by identifying and providing potential solutions for a variety of risks regarding the organization’s financials, programs, staffing, facility use, etc. 

Each of these governance items falls under the umbrella of the basic legal responsibilities of a nonprofit board. Broadly speaking, these responsibilities are referred to as the “three D’s”: the duty of care, the duty of loyalty, and the duty of obedience. These are well-established elements of nonprofit law. 

3. Support and Guide the Executive Director

Executive directors work tirelessly and make great sacrifices to fulfill the organization’s goals. It can be a thankless job, so the board has a real opportunity to step in and provide support. 

They can do this by offering wise guidance and counsel to the executive director. This could happen through scheduled check-ins where board members ensure the executive director has everything they need to be successful. We often recommend that the board chair, in particular, schedule monthly one-on-one conversations with the executive director. In other circumstances, board members could offer more specialized advice, especially in their specific areas of specialization such as law, insurance, finance, or human relations.

Your board should also provide a regular evaluation process for the executive director. This typically happens annually but it may happen more frequently as well. The evaluation process and the related conversations should provide the executive director with constructive feedback that helps them and the organization grow. 

4. Ensure Adequate Resources

The board ensures that the organization has adequate resources — especially finances and community relationships — in place to accomplish its mission and vision.

This does not mean, necessarily, that the board is responsible for acquiring these resources themselves. Fundraising, contrary to what many people think, does not have to be a primary responsibility of the board. The most financially sustainable nonprofit that we’ve worked with doesn’t have a fundraising board. Board members should contribute what they can — and fundraise if it makes sense — but it is not a blanket requirement of board service. In fact, recent research (see page 23 of Leading with Intent) that prioritizing fundraising above anything else can take away from organizational strategy, relevance, and impact. Instead, the board focuses on ensuring that the best fundraising processes are in place and that the finances are being adequately managed by the team set in place.

Lastly, the board should ensure that the organization has positive relationships within the community. Board members utilize their networks and connections they have built over the years to represent the organization within the community, advocating for the organization, and enhancing its public standing.  

5. Develop and Evaluate the Board Itself 

A final responsibility of every organization’s board has to do with growing and developing itself through recruiting new members and evaluating its own effectiveness.

Before recruiting new members, the board should first identify the qualities of the board that they want to create. Things to consider are the desired board’s size, needed skill sets, and the diversity of its members. The nonprofit’s bylaws will also provide requirements for the board’s composition. With the desired qualities in mind, the board can then seek new members to fill any gaps. 

The process for nominating and recruiting new board members is often specified in the bylaws. For example, the bylaws may dictate the presence of a nominating committee and/or who on the board has the authority to nominate new members. 

Recruiting new members is commonly done through active outreach by the board members and executive director. The board can also seek new members through board recruitment events like those held by Board Match. One of our customers has successfully recruited over half of its members through recruitment events. 

In addition to being thoughtful in how it recruits new members, an effective board can further develop itself by completing and discussing an annual self-evaluation. A self-evaluation template like this one can help the board members clarify the types of questions that they want to ask of themselves.

Final Thoughts   

A nonprofit’s board has a huge impact on its overall success. A good board ensures that the nonprofit stays on mission and pursues its vision. But a board that doesn’t understand its key responsibilities can lead to misunderstandings, confusion, and potentially worse problems in the long run. 

Having clarity around the responsibilities we outlined here can help your board avoid these pitfalls and operate successfully. 

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We just launched our online strategic planning course called START! START provides organizations with a practical strategic plan that they can successfully achieve. Learn more about how START can transform your organization.

10 Tips For Better Employee Engagement

If there is one thing that drives the success of a nonprofit organization, it's the people that believe in its purpose and contribute to its growth. As part of a growing nonprofit, your goals should be to continuously feed this passion by fostering an organizational culture that thrives on healthy levels of employee engagement.

But how can this be achieved? Below, we'll discuss ten tips for better employee engagement in your nonprofit.

Delegate Clear Responsibilities and Empower Your Employees

Employees of nonprofits are typically driven, passionate people who want to see the organization, mission, and sector succeed. However, if you want to get the best out of your employees, it's important that you delegate clear responsibilities with certain levels of accountability.

Giving your employees a clear understanding of their day-to-day, along with the broader strategic direction of the organization, empowers them to make decisions independently without the need for the regular direction of organizational leadership. This fosters healthy levels of autonomy and happy employees. As their supervisor, you win and they win.

Keep Communication Lines Open

There are few things in any organization as important as effective communication, and your nonprofit is no different. However, proper communication means something different to everyone, and finding out how your employees best communicate is essential when creating mutually beneficial dialogues.

How do you know what works best for each employee? As important as it is to set a culture of communication and clearly define the tools and patterns of communication, it’s also important to ask your employees what works for them. Work with your team to design a way of working that provides the best results for everyone involved.

Whether you conduct regular in-person meetings, web conference calls, or have regular over-the-phone check-ins, your employees should feel like they have a regular conduit to you. This will allow them to be aware of their shifting priorities while also feeling they have a sustainable format to connect with you as needed.

Identify and Reinforce the Organization's Vision

At one point or another, you may find that some of your employees hit a productivity wall where they feel less engaged than they used to be in their current roles. When this occurs, it's important to spend the time to reinforce the organization's vision and the individual role they play when supporting it.

Your employees equally want to enjoy where they work and the work they do. One way to ensure this happens is by regularly reminding them of how important they are to you, your organization, and your constituents. This feeling of belonging and purpose will help them get past productivity hurdles that may otherwise get in their way.

Create Manageable Workloads

Do your employees have enough to do? That may be a tricky question to answer without fully understanding your employees' capabilities or the day-to-day operational constraints they may be working with. It's essential to carefully consider your employees' abilities in relation to the amount of work they're tasked with.

Creating manageable workloads for your employees ensures that they are fulfilled day-to-day with the work they're accomplishing without feeling overwhelmed. This helps avoid employee burnout which inevitably can lead to poor morale and lack of productivity and efficiency.

Provide Regular Feedback

Regardless of how great your employees may perform, spending time giving regular feedback on their performance is a sure way to get long-term engagement from all members of your nonprofit team. When you give feedback to one of your employees, the context of the feedback needs to be as impactful as how it is delivered.

When giving feedback, you should be careful not to make it negative as much as constructive. The purpose of your feedback should never be to punish but rather to correct. Of course, not all feedback needs to be built around corrective action. Positive feedback can be even more impactful, and you should always look for opportunities to give it when you can.

Support Work-Life Balance

In order to ensure your employees stay engaged with the organization for a more extended period of time, it's vital to foster a healthy work-life balance. This can sometimes be challenging as nonprofit employees are often passionate about the projects they take on, and it can be tempting to put more time into the organization on a day-to-day basis than is sustainable.

Be sure to encourage your employees to maintain balance when working more hours than they should. This may mean mandating that they take time off at regular intervals, reduce hours when necessary, and find ways to step away from the daily grind when it starts to impact their ability to focus.

Flexibility in working hours and work location can provide value to the employee without negatively affecting work performance or productivity. If COVID taught us anything, it’s that work from home is here to stay. Crafting a policy that supports flex time and place will help you recruit and retain employees that are committed to your organization and passionate about the mission.

Keep Goals Measurable and Achievable

It’s important that you are clear with employees about the expectations of their role while ensuring they have a measurable path to success.

Every organization needs clear objectives, but this is especially the case when running a nonprofit. Whether those objectives are financially driven or are part of executing the nonprofit's mission, employees should be informed of their role in helping to achieve those targets.

Keep your goals measurable and achievable in order to get the most engagement out of your employees. By putting in place smaller milestones that they can achieve, you'll help build their confidence and build a much healthier culture of personal and professional growth.

Celebrate Employee Success

It can be easy to get wrapped up in the daily grind and forget about the hard work your employees do on a regular basis. Don't let the daily pressures of running your nonprofit lead you to forget about celebrating each of your employees' individual or group success from time to time.

While working for a nonprofit organization can be rewarding, every employee likes to know that they are appreciated for the effort put out every day. Take the time to celebrate with your employees whenever you can and continue to feed the excitement of watching your nonprofit succeed.

Provide Support Where Needed

Remember that while you may hire a staff member to complete a specific set of tasks, their success is often a direct reflection of the support you give them on a day-to-day basis. The more support you give, the more effective the output of the employee. Be sure to make yourself available whenever you can to support your employees regularly and give them the tools and knowledge they need to succeed.

Invest in ongoing training -- whether through your state organization membership, funding attendance of a key nonprofit conference, providing access to tools like LinkedIn Learning or Pluralsight Skill, or purchasing courses on Udacity or from various domain experts, like our START strategic planning course.

Allow For Honest Feedback

Just as important, if not more important, as giving feedback to your employees is the willingness to be given feedback as the need arises. The ability to remain humble and accept input from your employees is a defining quality of a great nonprofit leader.

Never shy away from the ability to receive thoughts, ideas, or concerns from your staff members, and be sure to give them a safe environment to do so. Curated feedback never benefits anyone. Open yourself up to being vulnerable, and you'll be amazed at the level of respect you're given for it.

Final Thoughts

It's vital that you never forget the importance of regularly engaging with your employees. By following these ten tips for better employee engagement, you'll ensure your employees remain excited about your nonprofit's goals and continue to play an active role in achieving them.

In the comments section below, share with us other tips you have for engaging your employees or has been particularly impactful to you.

Your Strategic Planning Process: The CAPE Cycle

At Mission Met, we frequently say that nonprofit executive directors are the heroes of the social sector. But what would a hero be without a cape? 

Enter the CAPE Cycle. The CAPE Cycle is a simple four-step strategic planning process that helps executive directors and their teams approach strategic planning as a process, not as an event. Implementing the CAPE Cycle ensures that nonprofits get the maximum impact from their strategic planning efforts. 

CAPE is an acronym for the four steps of the cycle: Champion, Assess, Plan, and Execute. 

Below is a summary of the four steps. 

Step 1: Champion

Like so many things, leadership is critical to your strategic planning success. That’s why it’s the focus of the first step of the CAPE Cycle – “Champion”.

In this step, you’ll identify one or two people that will champion the overall strategic planning process. This may seem rather obvious to do, but all too often a nonprofit makes the fatal mistake of charging into strategic planning without any clarity about who will ensure the long-term success of the effort.

In most cases, the executive director serves as an overall champion. However, what we strongly recommend is that the executive director partner with another team member to “co-champion” the process. Having two people work together in this way creates mutual accountability that helps to guarantee the positive impact of your plan.

Step 2: Assess

In the second step of the process, you’ll conduct an assessment of your organization. 

Your assessment should help you get clarity on both the current and desired future state of your organization. The plan that you end up creating will then bridge the gap between where your organization currently is and where you want it to be.

In addition to collecting organizational insights and data, your assessment is an excellent opportunity to involve your staff and board and get their buy-in to the planning process. 

We recommend that you conduct some form of an assessment annually so that you can keep your thumb on the pulse of your organization’s needs. 

Step 3: Plan

With the information you gathered in Step 2, it is then time to build your plan. Your plan presents an internal vision for your organization that should be simple and easy to communicate. 

We recommend that the core of your plan contain just two sections. Section 1 is what we call “Our Compass” and contains guiding elements such as a mission statement, vision statement, and organizational values. Section 2 is what we call “Our Actions” and revolves around a small set of goals that are organized by “Focus Areas” such as Programs, Board Development, and Fundraising. 

At Mission Met we provide our customers with easy-to-use strategic planning software, Mission Met Center, that simplifies and strengthens the creation of your plan. We also provide a service called INSPIRE where we capture your plan in a customized and graphically appealing document that you can share with your staff, board, and funders. 

Step 4: Execute

Perhaps the biggest problem with nonprofit strategic planning is that the plans often end up on the shelf collecting dust. That’s why the last step of the CAPE Cycle – Execute – is arguably the most important of the four steps. 

In this step, you and your team will commit to a regularly scheduled process of reviewing and measuring your plan. Individuals on your team will own different elements of the plan, report progress, and recommend changes so that the plan remains relevant. 

Do not create a plan without documenting and committing to a process of executing it. 

The CAPE Cycle in Action

One of our favorite strategic planning success stories comes from an environmental education organization called Vida Verde.

Many years ago, their nonprofit was in a crisis, and their leaders, Shawn and Laura, feared that they’d have to close their doors. Despite their excellent programs, their funding was not sustainable and they struggled to run the organization day-to-day while also expanding its capacity. 

If you ask Shawn and Laura, they’d tell you that what helped them reverse their fate was the implementation of the concepts in the CAPE Cycle. The two of them committed to championing the process, conducted a simple and replicable organizational assessment, created a practical and easy to communicate plan, and faithfully measured and revised their plan on a regular basis. 

The planning process became a part of their operational DNA, and Vida Verde evolved into a wildly successful organization. They regularly exceed their fundraising goals, have a tremendously engaged staff and board, and most importantly, they have strengthened the life-changing experiences for the children they serve. 

Conclusion

The CAPE Cycle is a cornerstone of our teachings at Mission Met. Approaching strategic planning as a process – not as an event – is critical to ensuring your strategic planning success.

If you’d like to transform your strategic planning process with these four steps, you may be interested in learning about our online strategic planning course called START. You can also schedule a free consultation to learn more about our consulting and facilitation services. 

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The CAPE Cycle is the model we use in our new online strategic planning course called START. START provides organizations with a practical strategic plan that they can successfully achieve. Learn more about how START can transform your organization at missionmet.com/START.

Using Social Media Effectively in your Nonprofit Organization

Ensuring your nonprofit organization is successful requires a dedicated focus in a variety of areas. Effective community engagement is one of those critical areas, playing an integral part in telling your organization's story while giving you the ability to gain new supporters.

Social media has become one of the most effective ways for nonprofit organizations to engage with their communities, support fundraising efforts, and develop strong relationships. You may have already realized this and created some social media profiles to build an effective engagement strategy.

However, while social media can be a great tool for nonprofit organizations, there are right and wrong ways to approach your social media strategy.

Below, we'll cover some relevant tips you can follow when using social media effectively in your nonprofit organization.

Establish Your Nonprofit Goals

Before beginning any social media initiatives, it's important to identify the goals for your nonprofit. Imagine that, a strategic planning company suggesting you should begin with the end in mind and be strategic about your goals!

Are you building general awareness about your organization and its mission? Are you looking for new donors or funders? Are you trying to encourage community discussions on particular topics or issues? Answering these questions will help ensure you serve the right content in the right channels to be successful.

Decide Who Should Manage Your Social Media

When beginning any social media initiative for your organization, maintaining consistency in your messaging and level of engagement is essential when building credibility in your organization. One way to ensure consistency in messaging is by relying on the same person(s) to manage your social media engagement. Assigning one or two people to manage your organization's social media presence will help keep your team accountable and ensure your goals and objectives are met.

Over time, you should also develop branding and social posting guidelines so that other team members, or potentially interns, could take over the work of drafting and expanding your social media presence.

Diversify Your Social Media Channels

Some nonprofits make a mistake when establishing a social media presence by sticking to one or two social media channels and not diversifying their outreach approach. When building social media profiles for your nonprofit, it's crucial to establish yourself on multiple platforms and cater your engagement strategies to each applicable channel. When diversifying your social media channels, however, it's essential to diversify your content.

Social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter are all great places to engage with potential donors, staff, or board members. Still, the type of content you deliver should be catered to the kind of audience found on each social channel. Rather than posting the same content across multiple channels, take the time to adjust your engagement strategies depending on the goals you're trying to achieve.

Develop a Social Engagement Calendar

Creating a social engagement calendar helps to keep you on task and ensures all of your social media platforms have a balanced and consistent amount of content.

A common mistake for nonprofit leaders is a lack of consistency when it comes to posting content, following up with emails or direct messages, and active outreach campaigns. Develop a social engagement calendar to stay consistent with social media activities. Whether sending organization updates, staffing announcements, fundraising requests, or thought leadership pieces, the more regular you are when engaging, the more credibility you'll develop for your nonprofit. Engagement calendars will help you stay on top of initiatives and keep you accountable for maintaining your social media presence.

Make Effective Use of Hashtags

When posting content on various social media platforms, use hashtags (i.e., #nonprofit or #our-mission). They’re a great way to bring targeted traffic to your social media posts or website. Hashtags act as keywords relevant to your posts and help categorize your content for other users who aren't already part of your network.

When making proper use of hashtags, it's important to reference as many non-branded key terms as possible, as most people won't be familiar with your organization's name and will be less likely to find your content otherwise. So #StopViolence or #SupportVictims are much better than #RichlandViolanceShelter.

Create Opportunities for Easy Donations

Social media platforms are great places to host fundraising campaigns and events for your organization. However, while creating fundraising events is a great proactive way to use different social media outlets, there are also passive ways for you to encourage donations to your nonprofit. When establishing social media profiles on various public platforms, most of them offer the ability to categorize your organization as a nonprofit, and therefore allow you to create specific call-to-action buttons or pages in support of your financial goals. Making use of these "donate" buttons is an easy way to simplify the process for new community members who want to support your organization's mission.

Engage With Purpose

A final important note about your social media engagement strategy is that it’s vital to engage your audience with purpose. Creating a content calendar can help you with this initiative. Ultimately, however, one of your primary goals when posting on social media platforms is not to come across like you're simply posting information to gain web traffic or simply to keep your social streams active. Your objective should be to always consider the emotional appeal of your posts and the audience who reads them.

While your social media objectives may be different from other for-profit organizations, it's okay to view certain aspects of your nonprofit's engagement strategy the same way highly recognized brands do. Think about your core values and how they relate to the posts you submit. Does your content display the attitudes, values, benefits, and vision your nonprofit represents? Considering this question aligns your social media objectives with the reputation your nonprofit has worked hard to obtain.

Final Thoughts

Social media platforms are an invaluable tool that nonprofits can use to gain new constituents, engage with a broader audience, share with the community, and learn from other nonprofit leaders.

By following these basic steps, you'll avoid bad habits when creating your social media presence while building the credibility your organization deserves.

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We just launched our online strategic planning course called START! START provides organizations with a practical strategic plan that they can successfully achieve. Learn more about how START can transform your organization.