You Can’t Serve a Mission Without a Map

Board-Level Guide to Strategic Planning That Works

Photo by Silvan Arnet on Unsplash

If you serve on a non-profit board, "strategic planning" may be either treated like a box to be checked, or in many cases, avoided.

Next year, maybe. We’re too busy right now.

Perhaps you’ve even tried a corporate model from a book or web site. Maybe you held a single retreat, brainstormed enough ideas to fill many flip chart pages. The result is far too often a long-forgotten document with no connection to your current activities or mission.

Sound familiar?

This isn’t about incompetence or lack of care. Quite the opposite—most non-profit directors are dedicated. But when it comes to strategy, many boards fall into one of three traps:

• They don’t prioritize strategic planning, assuming it's only important for very large nonprofits or business enterprises.

• They copy corporate strategic planning models, forgetting that nonprofits operate under different rules, motivations, and constraints.

• They try strategic planning without understanding what it is, what process to use and how to live out the results going forward.

The result is not just inefficiency. It can easily end up as mission drift, missed opportunity and stakeholder disconnect.

This article is your guide to fixing that.

Why Strategic Planning Must Look Different in Non-profits

Non-profits operate under a different model than for-profit companies, and most strategic planning models are designed for corporate use. There are significant differences that will affect outcome:

1. Your Value Chain is Nonlinear

In most businesses, the customer pays for the product or service and these sales provide value for shareholders. In nonprofits, the user and the funder are often two different groups, and “value” is usually a less tangible target than share price. Your strategy must align with both those you serve, and those who support your mission, financially and through volunteering. This creates a complex stakeholder map and a unique value proposition that a traditional corporate model doesn’t account for.

2. Lower Risk Tolerance

Corporations innovate with trials that have a built-in possibility of failure (“failing fast”). In nonprofits, “pilot programs” are the closest equivalent, but they must be more measured, have a longer planning and review time and can come with more ethical considerations. A failed program could erode trust, affect future funding, or harm vulnerable populations. That means innovation must be balanced with thoughtful piloting and risk mitigation.

3. Less Exposure to Strategic Thinking

Nonprofit directors are passionate about mission, but often are not trained in strategic development and planning. They need support and time to learn—something not always built into tight board agendas. Unless your board is a top notch strategic thinking team, nonprofit processes work best when they allow more time for each phase, and are spread over a longer period with some gaps in between phases.

4. You’re Not Competing for Market Share—You’re Competing for Attention and Trust

Nonprofits rarely compete for customers or clients, but they do compete for grants, donations, volunteers, and visibility. Yet many don’t recognize this, or wish to see it as, competition. Appealing for funding, volunteers and visibility doesn’t have to be aggressive, but it should be strategic.

Common Strategic Mistakes on Nonprofit Boards