I remember being a new employee at an organization where my on-boarding involved attending a full-day strategic planning session for the Board of Directors that never actually produced a strategic plan. The process was relatively rigid and involved brainstorming followed by break-out groups followed by putting things in columns on chart paper that covered most of the free wall space in the room. At the end of the day, all we had to show for it was a Board Member resignation and miles and miles of marker-covered chart paper, still I’m sure in a box somewhere.
The striking part of the process was that I had experienced it in some iteration several times before. Granted, most times the outcome was an 8 ½ x 11 paper version of what was on the chart paper, but with content that was similarly the result of prescribed brainstorms and “check-ins” and break-out groups reporting back on their thoughts, all of which were slotted in the appropriate colour on the appropriate piece of chart paper on one of the meeting room walls. To be sure, there’s nothing inherently wrong with thoughts on chart paper, but solid strategic planning involves drawing out creative, focused thoughts that address organizational barriers, fit with the macro-level environment in which the organization operates, and moves the organization forward in an meaningful way. Otherwise, you’ll be doing what you’ve always done and as my dad loves to say, “then you’re going to get what you always got”.
To avoid the marker and chart paper treadmill, here are some things to consider when engaging in a strategic planning process:
1. Use a process that avoids pathological planning (or doing what you’ve always done to get what you’ve always got). This is especially important when the process involves stakeholders that have been part of the process over many years: you don’t want your strategic planning to recycle the same goals and objectives that the organization has always had, especially if they aren’t being achieved and if they have lost their relevance. In this way, strategic planning is about more than just opinion facilitation: it’s about translating thoughts, ideas, and opinions into relevant strategies that are creative, high-impact, and doable.
2. Don’t let group dynamics have an undue impact on strategic planning. The most assertive and vocal opinions are not always the ones that should be directing strategic planning. I’ve been part of conversations after a key planning session where people were unhappy and frustrated with the outcomes, but couldn’t bring themselves to speak up/speak out during the session. A good process will actively seek out opinion diversity and not let the volume and persistence of one opinion lead to groupthink with no basis in sound strategic thinking.
3. Pre-plan for the planning. Seek out thoughts, ideas, and input prior to the strategic planning session and identify common themes, with recommendations on how these themes should inform forward-looking strategy. Attempting to develop an entire plan from scratch in one session is, at best, draining and, at worst, unrealistic. If you arrive with a basic understanding of the issues, needs, and overarching goals of the organization, you can hold a focused (and shorter) session that works with stakeholders to mould these factors into strategic directions.
It can be daunting to think of spear-heading this process internally in the midst of day-to-day realties in organizations, which is why many organizations bring in a third-party consultant (as an aside, a third party is also a great way to put another set of eyes on the organization and mitigate pathological strategic management). But to maximize your return on consultant investments, be sure that the person you are hiring is not just a facilitator of internal input, but a strategist in their own right that can process the information and feedback solicited from stakeholders and develop relevant, high-impact, and achievable strategies.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
What are you Fundraising for?
On January 12th, when a devastating earthquake shook Haiti, social media websites lit up with everyday people putting calls out for donations on behalf of the Red Cross and other aid organizations. Within hours of the news breaking, you had to wait in a call queue to talk to a customer service representative at the Red Cross in order to make a donation...and all before the organization had launched any major PR campaigns asking for help.
Why the phenomenal groundswell of (largely unsolicited) support? Primarily, we’d suggest, because there was such a great and urgent need that people felt compelled to help pro-actively, and not because a telemarketer applied the “overcome-3-objections-before-letting-the-person-off-the-phone” rule. People saw that their money would have immediate impact: it would clothe someone, feed someone, provide someone with water that would literally be life-saving.
In this way, the public response to the earthquake in Haiti is a strong illustration of the inextricable role that programming and service delivery play in fundraising. It calls into question the contention that a cracker-jack fundraiser or dynamic development team is the panacea for organizations that are struggling financially and, instead (or at least in addition), challenges organizations to assess their core activities and determine the urgency and relevance of current programming to their target audience.
We’ve witnessed first-hand the opposite of the Haiti experience where groups have had long-standing programs that have lost their relevance and timeliness and, if they are generating any revenue, are doing so based mostly on the history between the donor and the organization. Clearly, this is unsustainable...donor databases have to be replenished and, therefore, history with existing donors has its revenue-generating limits. In other words (to borrow an Oprah-ism) this is what we know for sure: relevant, effective, and efficiently-run programs that fill a gap in service delivery are critical to generating sustainable revenue. Even the most creative fundraising campaigns can’t overcome the challenges of tired or non-existent programming.
We’ll suggest a few starting points for assessing your current program or determining the potential appeal of new programming:
1. Does it meet a specific, identifiable, and important need?
2. Will this program or service have broad application or impact?
3. Can your organization effectively carry the program or service out with its available resources?
4. Is it an efficient use of resources? What will the program’s outputs be relative to the resources it will require (financial and human; in other words, what will be the return on investment)?
5. Does it avoid duplicating what other agencies are already doing?
6. Can the premise of the program or service you are delivering be easily communicated?
7. Is the issue you are addressing timely; are people (at least some people) reading/thinking/talking about it?
8. Is there the opportunity for multi-party or multi-sector collaboration?
9. Would you give your personal money to support this program or service?
If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, than your program or services are likely well-positioned to attract donor support. But, a one-time” yes” doesn’t mean resting on your laurels over time. There has to be ongoing evaluation of program/service relevance and persistent creativity and innovation that allow the program to evolve and change with the times and the needs of your clients. If you find that your answers to the questions above start to fall into some gray area, it’s time to re-think their relevance and applicability so that at any given moment you’ll have a clear, concise, and high-impact response when someone asks what you’re fundraising for.
Why the phenomenal groundswell of (largely unsolicited) support? Primarily, we’d suggest, because there was such a great and urgent need that people felt compelled to help pro-actively, and not because a telemarketer applied the “overcome-3-objections-before-letting-the-person-off-the-phone” rule. People saw that their money would have immediate impact: it would clothe someone, feed someone, provide someone with water that would literally be life-saving.
In this way, the public response to the earthquake in Haiti is a strong illustration of the inextricable role that programming and service delivery play in fundraising. It calls into question the contention that a cracker-jack fundraiser or dynamic development team is the panacea for organizations that are struggling financially and, instead (or at least in addition), challenges organizations to assess their core activities and determine the urgency and relevance of current programming to their target audience.
We’ve witnessed first-hand the opposite of the Haiti experience where groups have had long-standing programs that have lost their relevance and timeliness and, if they are generating any revenue, are doing so based mostly on the history between the donor and the organization. Clearly, this is unsustainable...donor databases have to be replenished and, therefore, history with existing donors has its revenue-generating limits. In other words (to borrow an Oprah-ism) this is what we know for sure: relevant, effective, and efficiently-run programs that fill a gap in service delivery are critical to generating sustainable revenue. Even the most creative fundraising campaigns can’t overcome the challenges of tired or non-existent programming.
We’ll suggest a few starting points for assessing your current program or determining the potential appeal of new programming:
1. Does it meet a specific, identifiable, and important need?
2. Will this program or service have broad application or impact?
3. Can your organization effectively carry the program or service out with its available resources?
4. Is it an efficient use of resources? What will the program’s outputs be relative to the resources it will require (financial and human; in other words, what will be the return on investment)?
5. Does it avoid duplicating what other agencies are already doing?
6. Can the premise of the program or service you are delivering be easily communicated?
7. Is the issue you are addressing timely; are people (at least some people) reading/thinking/talking about it?
8. Is there the opportunity for multi-party or multi-sector collaboration?
9. Would you give your personal money to support this program or service?
If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, than your program or services are likely well-positioned to attract donor support. But, a one-time” yes” doesn’t mean resting on your laurels over time. There has to be ongoing evaluation of program/service relevance and persistent creativity and innovation that allow the program to evolve and change with the times and the needs of your clients. If you find that your answers to the questions above start to fall into some gray area, it’s time to re-think their relevance and applicability so that at any given moment you’ll have a clear, concise, and high-impact response when someone asks what you’re fundraising for.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
A Bit About Us
Welcome to Schneider McLaughlin’s inaugural blog.
Of all the communications we’ve written as partners to date, this has been one of the most exciting and challenging: we both have so much we want to explore, discuss, and debate about the sector, it’s been tough to bear in mind that our blog will allow us to tackle all of our thoughts and perspectives in good time. So, we agreed that as an introduction, we would simply answer the question: “What do we most want people to know about us as a company?”.
We have a 3-part answer.
First, this company is rooted in a deep respect for the voluntary sector and a desire to address the challenges it faces. Through our respective careers and volunteer activities, we have served on the front lines in non-profit organizations and well know the inherent struggles that come with providing first-rate programs and services while simultaneously making payroll and keeping the lights on. We intimately know the responsibilities and expectations that are attached to both board and staff roles and appreciate the challenge of gelling those roles to maximum effectiveness. We strongly believe in the critical importance of the sector as a counter-balance to purely profit-driven agendas and our overarching goal, therefore, is to apply innovative thinking to help organizations build resiliency, capacity, and sustainability as a means of strengthening the sector as a whole.
Second, we don’t believe there is anything simple about the non-profit sector or its member organizations. In fact, we think both are extremely complex systems comprised of a myriad of intertwined relationships: between and among board and staff; between funders and beneficiaries; between government and non-profits; between the private and non-profit sectors; and among non-profit agencies themselves. Therefore, the answers to strategic questions are always necessarily multi-faceted. Even within organizations, we believe that effectiveness is found in understanding the relationships between the various organizational components: between marketing, fundraising, program development, human resources, and finance. No one component will stand on its own or hold sole responsibility for an organization’s successes or failures. Our strategic approach always bears these complexities in mind.
Third, our partnership is built on both strong, complementary synergies and bringing our respective backgrounds and personalities into our work with clients. We have decades of individual experience in the issues we’re advising on: Chris in policy, governance, research, evaluation, and strategic management; and Corrie in marketing, fundraising, communications, strategic planning, and fiscal management. And, the great part is we like working together: our unique backgrounds and perspectives allow us to challenge each other, enhance our thought processes, and provide thoughtful, multi-faceted analysis to our clients. Our goal is to bring the creative, exciting, forward-thinking dialogue and debate that happens in our office to our client organizations: we believe it’s what makes us an impactful partner in helping to build effective and resilient non-profit organizations.
Over the life of our blog, we want to raise and address critical issues to the sector and discuss the topics on peoples’ minds. We hope you’ll follow its progression and become an important part of the dialogue. We await your feedback and suggestions and we definitely look forward to hearing and discussing the ideas that will inspire social innovation and bring about meaningful change.
Chris and Corrie
Of all the communications we’ve written as partners to date, this has been one of the most exciting and challenging: we both have so much we want to explore, discuss, and debate about the sector, it’s been tough to bear in mind that our blog will allow us to tackle all of our thoughts and perspectives in good time. So, we agreed that as an introduction, we would simply answer the question: “What do we most want people to know about us as a company?”.
We have a 3-part answer.
First, this company is rooted in a deep respect for the voluntary sector and a desire to address the challenges it faces. Through our respective careers and volunteer activities, we have served on the front lines in non-profit organizations and well know the inherent struggles that come with providing first-rate programs and services while simultaneously making payroll and keeping the lights on. We intimately know the responsibilities and expectations that are attached to both board and staff roles and appreciate the challenge of gelling those roles to maximum effectiveness. We strongly believe in the critical importance of the sector as a counter-balance to purely profit-driven agendas and our overarching goal, therefore, is to apply innovative thinking to help organizations build resiliency, capacity, and sustainability as a means of strengthening the sector as a whole.
Second, we don’t believe there is anything simple about the non-profit sector or its member organizations. In fact, we think both are extremely complex systems comprised of a myriad of intertwined relationships: between and among board and staff; between funders and beneficiaries; between government and non-profits; between the private and non-profit sectors; and among non-profit agencies themselves. Therefore, the answers to strategic questions are always necessarily multi-faceted. Even within organizations, we believe that effectiveness is found in understanding the relationships between the various organizational components: between marketing, fundraising, program development, human resources, and finance. No one component will stand on its own or hold sole responsibility for an organization’s successes or failures. Our strategic approach always bears these complexities in mind.
Third, our partnership is built on both strong, complementary synergies and bringing our respective backgrounds and personalities into our work with clients. We have decades of individual experience in the issues we’re advising on: Chris in policy, governance, research, evaluation, and strategic management; and Corrie in marketing, fundraising, communications, strategic planning, and fiscal management. And, the great part is we like working together: our unique backgrounds and perspectives allow us to challenge each other, enhance our thought processes, and provide thoughtful, multi-faceted analysis to our clients. Our goal is to bring the creative, exciting, forward-thinking dialogue and debate that happens in our office to our client organizations: we believe it’s what makes us an impactful partner in helping to build effective and resilient non-profit organizations.
Over the life of our blog, we want to raise and address critical issues to the sector and discuss the topics on peoples’ minds. We hope you’ll follow its progression and become an important part of the dialogue. We await your feedback and suggestions and we definitely look forward to hearing and discussing the ideas that will inspire social innovation and bring about meaningful change.
Chris and Corrie
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