I’m the executive director of an arts organization. At our board meetings we’re getting into disagreements regarding priorities for the next three years. Some of our members want to expand our best programs, but a particularly vocal board member is concerned that we lack a steady source of funding, and that expanding the scale of programs is too risky. I told the board that I would draft a strategic plan to help make a case for the appropriate priorities. I haven’t done this before. What should I be thinking about?
Based on my experience and your description of the situation, I don’t think you should write a strategic plan at this time. Before you start writing a plan, you should lead your board through a discussion of your organization’s mission, vision, and values. With broad agreement around these key underpinnings of your organization, there’s a good chance that you can bridge the differences among your board members. The worst fate for a newly written strategic plan is for some of the decision makers to reject it immediately because it doesn’t reflect their beliefs about the organization.
If there’s board-level disagreement about the future of a particular program, consider writing a plan just for that program, rather than a strategic plan for the entire organization. A few years ago I helped write a plan for a local Habitat for Humanity chapter that looked at the expected benefits, costs, and required timelines for a program to resell building materials. By focusing on just a small part of the organization’s activities, the ACT team was able to write the plan quickly. Ultimately, the board came to a consensus around the issue.
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I agree. Based on many years of leading and advising arts organizations, I think you would do best to have a discussion of your mission, how your organization is fulfilling it or not and whether it needs re-examination. You will also want to know what each board member thinks about the mission, the organization and their role in supporting it. Getting some outside help to have objective conversations with the board and senior staff can be helpful as well. These are the first steps in strategic planning - a process that should be very inclusive of all stakeholders so that the end result has everyone vested in its success. The process is not a short one - particularly since board members are volunteering their time and have other commitments but if you can get a core strategic planning committee together, it can be very energizing for the organization. Finally, since it is the process that it is the fruitful part, put together a work plan on how your strategic plan will be implemented, complete with benchmarks and outcomes you wish to see happen. Then you have something to measure and examine over a period of time.
»» Posted by: Mary Kelley on April 11, 2008 07:56 AM