Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations: A Practical Guide for Dynamic Times, 3rd Edition

Chapter 9Step 9: Complete Your Strategic Plan

You're in the home stretch! In this step you will finalize your decisions, ensure alignment and commitment, and complete the strategic plan, making sure the plan is clear, compelling, and supported. It is the strategic planning committee's job to make sure all of the important questions have been asked and answered, and that engagement in the process has built sufficient buy-in and alignment with stakeholders.

There are five substeps. The time it takes to go through each of the following substeps can vary from a few weeks to a month or two, depending primarily on how intensively the draft plan is reviewed with board and staff. It is the committee's job to strike the balance between having “enough” input and getting the job done. The substeps are as follows:

1. Summarize strategic decisions, agree on core strategies
2. Draft the complete strategic plan
3. Conduct a thorough review process
4. Begin to prepare a document for public distribution
5. Reflect and celebrate!

Summarize Strategic Decisions

During the strategic analysis section of this process, each of the five key elements of the content of strategic planning has been investigated. At the conclusion of each step, the group prepared a summary of its proposals using worksheets, and subsequently made sure to connect the dots to ensure tight connectivity between each dimension. At this point ...