Tools for Strategic Planning

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Tools for Strategic Planning

• Peggy McGarry

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What Are We Talking About Here?

• MONEY!
• Philanthropy Giving money away

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A Means to an End

• MONEY is a means to an end.
• Strategic Planning Defining the end
• Strategic Planning Determining how you will
  use your means to achieve that end

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Defining the End Creating a Vision

• Create a vision of the Should Be
• How do you want the world, your community, or a
  group of people to be different because of your
  activities and giving?
• No, not that the Skins win the
• Superbowl!

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How Will You Know?

• Describe what would be different if your desired
  end, your vision, were achieved.
• Your vision should be almost a picture.
• Where
• Who
• Doing what
• Whats gone, whats in its place
• Whos there, whos not

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Pictures
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Lets Stop For a Minute

• 1. Make a quick list of your major current grants
  or giving.
• 2. Exchange lists with another organization or
  foundation at your table.
• 3. Using the list you have been given, create a
  vision statement for the organization whose
  grants it represents.
• 4. Discuss your results.

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Strategic Planning Part IIAssessing What Is

• Youve just had a chance to look at what your
  giving says about your organizations vision.
• Is there a disconnect?
• How would you start over?
• Who would you talk to?
• How would you re-create it?

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Possible steps

• Look at previous giving patterns.
• Interview owners/management for the places,
  issues, problems they care about.
• Create a draft statement that you can circulate
  for their approval.

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Defining Your Values

• Consider what values will help guide your
  strategies as you work toward your vision.
• Think about those attributes that are most likely
  to bring about your desired world E.g.,
• Making a difference not just dispensing largesse.

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or

• 2. Seeking out agencies who demonstrate their
  understanding of a problem and can articulate
  exactly how they are making a difference
• 3. Funding organizations that address the root
  causes of problems not just their symptoms
• 4. Looking for efforts that meaningfully involve
  the group they are trying to assist.

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Choosing Outcomes

• Reflect on this difference that you want to be
  part of creating. Translate those pictures (the
  where, who, doing what) into specific outcomes
  that you would like to see.
• For example You have chosen to focus your
  efforts on the Powderhorn neighborhood of
  Minneapolis. The local schools report
  significant truancy and a high drop-out rate the
  police report juvenile crime is increasing and
  threatening some of the overall crime reduction
  that they have seen in recent years.

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Outcomes

• The outcomes that you want to see are
• A reduction in truancy
• More children finishing high school and
• Effective interventions with youngsters at risk
  for delinquency.

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Lets stop again.1. Go back to those grant
lists.2. Exchange them again.3. From the list
you have, create a list of the outcomes that this
foundation is seeking in its grantmaking.4.
Discuss
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Setting Goals

• Set goals
• Realistic, reasonable, measurable goals
• That make your vision concrete
• That make it possible to measure progress toward
  the imagined future.

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BUT WAIT!!
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Gathering Information

• You cant set measureable goals until you know
  more about the issues you are trying to tackle.
• Strategic Planning Part III
• GET THE INFORMATION!

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What Information and Who Has It?

• As you focus on the problems and issues that you
  want to use your resources to address, you will
  want to do the same kind of research that you
  would if you were investing your own money
• What data are available on the issues For
  example
• For which grades is truancy primarily a problem?
  Is it a parental problem (younger grades) or a
  supervision problem (high school)?
• Does the school system know who is not
  graduating? Is this a problem with the recent
  Somali immigrants whose parents need them to work
  or to stay at home?

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Information, Continued

• Or teenagers who have missed so much school or
  have done so poorly that they drop out in
  frustration?
• What organizations are working in these areas, if
  any?
• What approach have they, the schools, the police,
  or others taken to address these problems?
• With what kinds of results? Have they been
  evaluated?
• What would they identify as promising practices
  in need of support?
• Is there academic or other national research on
  these problems? Evaluations?

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Information Sources

• The federal government, universities, and
  national organizations all produce readily
  available information on emerging research,
  promising practices, and proven approaches on
  their websites.
• Office of Justice Programs at the US DOJ the
  NCIPC at the Centers for Disease Control the
  Robert Wood Johnson Fdn., the University of
  Colorado are just a few. Any search engine can
  provide other links.

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Possible Partners

• There are likely other foundations interested in
  these same issues either in your city or region.
  
• National philanthropic associations may have
  affinity groups organized around these issues.
• Contact them and ask for information, for ideas,
  and for the opportunity to partner.
• Organize a meeting in your city on the topic of
  interest to you. Invite other foundations,
  churches, community organizations and others for
  a get smart day, or for a get going day.

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Now You Are Ready!

• To identify specific goals for your philanthropy.
• To attach measureable benchmarks to each.
• To use these to guide your grantmaking.

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Take Stock of Your Assets

• Connected as you are to highly visible
  personalities, you have access to assets that are
  valuable in all kinds of ways.
• Your ability to arrange a golf or tennis game
  with your player(s) might be enough to interest
  the owners of a business to partner with you in
  taking on a particular cause or organization.

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Assets, Continued

• Your personalities can likewise exponentially
  increase the success of your efforts just through
  their presence A team member at every school in
  a neighborhood for parents night could mean a
  real jump-start to a truancy, reading, or
  preventive health effort involving parents. Or
  even to a clean up day at the school.

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Choosing specific strategies

• You know what you want to achieve
• Youve decided on concrete goals
• You know what your values are and your assets
• Youve gotten the best information on projects,
  approaches, and programs ----
• Now how do you choose what to fund?

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Possible Approaches

• Ask other foundations or the United Way, and
  choose initiatives
• Hold an event (connected with your issue) and
  announce a competitive process for which you will
  have application guidelines available.
• Choose one or more partners and work with them to
  add resources to existing projects remembering
  that you bring unique resources.

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Using Your Goals

• Regardless of which approach you choose, you have
  to ask the project or program to tell you exactly
  how they are going to achieve the goals and
  outcomes that you seek. How will they measure
  their (and your!) success?
• Remember that you are making an investment What
  return are they promising?

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Monitor!

• Set up a system for receiving regular reports
  from your projects on their accomplishments,
  their needs, and new problems they see emerging.
• You are an investor and you are committed to
  their success.

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Strategic Planning

• It never ends.
• Start the process over again Hows your vision?
  How well defined your goals?
• How well are you leveraging all of your
  resources?
• How wise or strategic your investments?