This post is one of a continuing series on strategic planning and is based on my work facilitating strategic planning with nonprofit agencies. In strategic planning one of my initial conversations with an agency executive director will invariably include a discussion about the use of the strategic plan following its development.  The savvy executive director will describe the concrete ways in which the plan will be used to support agency governance.  S/he will describe the use of performance measures connected to the plan goals and strategies and the specific tools that help the board and staff manage their progress on implementing the plan.  More common however, the the executive director that laments how the exercise of strategic planning rarely impacts the agency in a deep and substantive way.  In this scenario, I am often asked, “how can this strategic planning process be different?”  In this post, I wanted to review the fundamentals of how use the process of strategic planning to increase organizational capacity.

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The obvious direct impact of strategic planning is the written strategy that is created.  At its most basic level in creation of a strategic plan is the DNA of capacity development.  Done well, a strategic plan offers a roadmap for the growth and  development of an organization. With intentional effort to keep the plan present and alive using simple performance monitoring tools, (like a dashboard or scorecard) an agency directly benefits from its investment in strategic planning.  However, I believe the face value of a strategic plan is only the beginning of the use of a strategic plan. Some other layers of using strategic planning to build capacity include the following:

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Board, Staff and Stakeholder Development: While textbook strategic planning can be a very pedestrian process of assessing the current internal and external environment, developing priorities and strategies, and writing a document, I believe the potential of strategic planning is to use the process to develop the energy, passion, skills and knowledge of board, staff and stakeholders.   Strategic planning is about engagement and focus of people and not just about data.  In planning a strategic planning effort, one of the framing questions should be “at the end of this process, how will out staff, board and stakeholders be different?” If this question is pursued intentionally then strategic planning offers and agency to develop the understanding, passion, and commitment of board, staff and stakeholders.  In this context, the planning process can and should include empowerment and learning community approaches. Indeed, a strategic planning process is successful to the degree that it creates a deeper understanding of the role and function of the agency in solving compelling social needs.

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Strategic Dialogue:  Having facilitated the development of numerous strategic plans, I find some of the greatest energy in the process comes as I work with an organization to gather “outside” perspectives.  While not commonly done, I am a strong believer that  organizations benefit from seeking advice and perspective from outside of the agency.  Insights coming from other agencies working on the same issue, from funders, donors, community partners and even agency clients, yield not only valuable strategic planning insights but often begins the process of dialogue.  Once the strategic plan is developed, I encourage agencies to continue the conversation with their funders, donors, community partners, and clients by sharing the strategic directions of the plan.  Some agencies bristle at the concept of sharing such sensitive, internal knowledge and reference the for profit sector’s contention that strategy is proprietary and needs to be guarded. I would counter that being transparent about strategy is actually strategic in the social sector.  Sharing knowledge about strategy makes explicit the position, direction and focus of an agency and can be used to define a larger community or regional agenda.  Engaging in such a dialogue with partners, funders, donors, clients and the community at large fosters collaboration and increases the potential of creating a network of strategies that can improve the collective social impact of all stakeholders.

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Field Building: Paired with the concept of strategic dialogue, a third use of a strategic plan is that it holds the potential to improve the field of practice.  Strategic Planning offers a unique and compressed exercise in evaluation, innovation and system design.  When strategic planning is resourced, well-designed and not simply a rote exercise it is a laboratory experience that has both internal and external dimensions.  Too often a strategic planning process is myopically inward content with asking the question, “how do we succeed in fulfilling our mission?”  While there is no denying that strategic planning is designed to create an organizational future, strategic planning also influences the collective future of the field of practice in which the agency operates.  In addition to how does the organizational “we” succeed there is also a dimension of how does the collective “we” succeed.  One outcome of strategic planning could be the free sharing of lessons learned.  By giving away your knowledge, you enable the the social sector to collectively enhance the knowledge base and field of practice.

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Taken together, strategic planning becomes a layered process of developing capacity.  Clearly and unequivocally the foundation of strategic planning is the creation of an organizational pathway to the future.  However, if layers of “human capital” development, strategic dialogue, and field building are added to the foundation of strategy, a strategic plan becomes a powerful tool to expand agency capacity. Facilitating a strategic planning process is more than following one of any number of strategic planning textbooks.  Strategic planning is large, shaping and capacity-building and it is the responsibility of facilitators to “bring life” to a strategic planning process.  I believe, it is only through this larger lens of capacity development do nonprofits build meaningful strategic plans.

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As always, your comments are welcome.

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Volunteer-based nonprofit boards are typically comprised of diverse representatives from the community who want  to make a contribution to a cause-based organization.  In smaller to mid-sized organizations it  likely that many new board members have not served on a board previously and often have a vague idea of what being a board member means.   In this context, a board orientation is an important “educational” event. Unfortunately, in zeal to adequately train board members, board  orientation sessions can spiral downwards into a mountain of data and presentation slides.  I have personal experience in such a “missed opportunity ” when I once was captive in a board orientation where the trainer actually powered through over eighty slides in an hour.  My butt was numb and my mind even numb-er and needless to say I learned very little  from the session.  So if massive quantity of slides makes a poor board orientation,   how does one facilitate a board orientation that is not a death march through random slide transitions on an overhead screen?  Here are three fundamental principles:

Spend no more than 12-14 “pages” on Board Governance.  Oregon, like many states produces a Guide to Nonprofit Board Service with the entire document spanning only 16 pages (including covers, front matter and a huge amount of white space).  If the State Attorney General’s Office thinks that the concept of governance can be distilled down 12-14 pages of content, then that becomes a good guide for most nonprofit boards. As a general rule, new board members can get the concepts of “duty” and “control” in ten-fifteen minutes of discussion, without having to explain Federal Circulars governing contract management.  Of course, my assumption is that we are talking about a stable nonprofit with a track record of good management practice, fiscal and program controls, and supporting policies and procedures.  Boards governing an agency in transition are another story.

Foster the sense that board members are vital connectors.  A Board orientation needs to emphasize the board members role as a connector. One of the few slides that I have used in board orientation workshops, places the board in between the organization and the community.  The theoretical discussion is simple.  The board has an internal role connecting to the agency mission, vision, staff members and CEO and is responsible for stewarding those connections.  Externally, the board connects to the clients, community and contributors, outwardly representing the agency to these three groups and connecting the interests and needs of the external groups back to the organization. At the recent orientation I attended, one of the practical exercises in making internal connections paired board members in groups of 2 and 3 and had them meet in a roundtable format with staff of the agency who represented the different organizational programs and services.  In an hour’s time, board members connected with each program of the agency and, more importantly, with the agency staff members. Board members reported making vital connections and understanding and praised the short, intense dialogue approach as more meaningful than slide presentations of the same material.

Provide connection to each other.  Another facet of board orientation is to outline the concept of networked governance. I have discussed this concept in another post and increasingly I am convinced that successful boards are those that approach governance as a network.  Fundamental to a network is the concept that relationships matter.  Another node in which board members serve as a connector is in their relationships with each other.  Orientation must provide time for board members to connect less formally.

Orientation is Process. Finally remember that, as with everything based on performance, the orientation of new board members is not an event but a process.  An intentional time set aside for orientation is a way to start embedding concepts into heads (by detailing program data), engaging hearts (connecting board member with passion and mission), and putting tools in hands (reference materials, by-laws, operating procedures).  That’s orientation. The hard work of building relationships, creating meaningful impact and engaging a high performing board is the ongoing work of board development.  This development requires the ongoing facilitation process that cycles and deepens as boards govern in partnership with the CEO, staff, and community.

Anyone can download some board orientation slides off of the web and present a training workshop.  However, bringing facilitation process into a board orientation shifts the framework from training to learning and this deeper pursuit will strengthen the board. Facilitating a nonprofit board is a journey of empowerment and the first steps along the road to success can be found in the strong grounding of the board orientation.

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

References

Creating High Impact Nonprofits

Board Governance as Leadership Summary

A community engagement process such as developing a community coalition or an advisory group  typically has the dual purposes of achieving a specific program outcome (such as advocating for funding or policy change) and attempts to build social networks between participants.  Coalitions or advisory groups are convened typically because each participant comes with very different perspectives, assets and power with the goal of achieving through collective effort what individuals cannot achieve on their own.  By fostering collaboration, it is the classic systems view of the “whole being more than the sum of the parts.”  So when a facilitator tracks the progress of the group, in addition to measuring process and outcome, s/he needs to measure the strength of the network. So what does measuring a network look like?  I would like to offer three frames that might serve as network measurement.

Measuring Social Networks:  The concept of measuring social networks basically identifies the extent and intensity of social relationships among the individuals and organizations in the community engagement process.  Using qualitative tools to take “snap shots” of individual and organizational practices over time, this evaluation approach can be used to describe the size and structure of networks, positions, roles and communication and interaction patterns among members. Measuring social networks is a way to estimate the “effect” of the coalition with the assumption that when a network is growing in scope and depth then there is likely a positive network effect being created by the engagement process.  There are software tools that can help in measuring social networks and there is a large literature base describing social network measurement.  A case study that I have found very useful in illustrating this methodology is a report of the Reclaiming Futures National Program Office (disclaimer: I do development work for this organization but had nothing to do with this evaluation).

Measuring Social Capital:  There are many ways of looking at the concept of social capital some of which overlap social network measurement.  In this context, I would like to suggest that social capital measurement differs from social network measurement in that social capital is not only interested in the breadth and depth of networks but also considers the power distribution in that network.  Some of the best resources on measuring social capital come from the international community and, from all places, the World Bank.  Using works like trust, solidarity, collective action, and inclusion, a social capital approach suggests greater attention to the power dynamics of a coalition or advisory group.  It asks not only if groups are working together but also asks if there is equity and balance in the power and relationships.

Measuring Entrepreneurial Actions:  Back in 1978 I cam across a paper that discussed the concept of measuring entrepreneurial behavior in nonprofit agencies.  This paper influenced how I thought about capacity in nonprofit agencies by offering a way to think about measuring the creative force of an organization.  I have pondered if there are implications for coalition measurement.  In other words, could we use entrepreneurial intent as a marker for measuring coalition strength?  Zooming ahead a decade, there is increasing discussion of the concept of “industry clusters” as a regional economic engine (I introduced clusters as a collaboration model in another post).  Associated with this economic development theory are emerging models for measuring “regional entrepreneurship capital.” Such measures look at physical capital, cooperation, human capital, knowledge capital and social capital.  For coalitions, a measurement framework might identify a collection of indicators related to these “capital” domains, aggregate the indicators for all coalition members, and track those indicators over time.  Growth in these indicators would indicate that the coalition “market sector” is growing by leveraging joint actions of members or by expanding the network.

As I stated in the beginning of this post, measuring progress as one facilitates community engagement needs to include an assessment of process and outcomes.  Those twin measures are the basis of ethical facilitation practice.  However coalitions and advisory groups convened for interdependent long-term action also requires measuring the social network and capital effects of the convening.  Unfortunately, network measurements takes additional time, resources and are often beyond a project scope.  However, there is a deeper point than lecturing about the need to do an evaluation that often cannot be afforded.  The point underscores the premise of the first post, which is that facilitating community engagement requires more than group facilitation skills. In designing community engagement processes, facilitators need to consider the power of convening community partners. That power is inherent in the relationships that can be cultivated by the facilitation process and measured (formally or informally) over time.  If this power is ignored or underutilized it can result in a coalition that is weak and ineffective.  Conversely, if capitalized on, nurtured and measured, the collective power of the network can expand capacity in ways that no one agency could achieve alone.  If a formal network evaluation cannot be an “action,” due to budget or scope constraints, it still must remain a frame of reference for the facilitator. Having a network measurement focus going into a community engagement process distinguishes a community engagement process from mere meeting facilitation.