Ten Ideas to Strengthen the NonProfit Sector

In this posting I offer 10 ideas that non profit sector organizations might consider undertaking to strengthen themselves.. All of them may not be necessary to the same degree for your organization but this list of ten transformations does, I believe, contain at least several major changes your organization should at least think about. Here they are in no particular order.

Why Planning Goes Wrong

The biggest reason plan’s fail is that people don’t do the plan. They don’t do it because they have not collectively embraced it, have not structured their work to do it, and are not spending the time and effort to make changes in behavior to do it. This is why all strategic planning consultants and writers will tell you that a plan’s success depends on the unwavering leadership and involvement of the CEO. If that is absent, the change required to bring plans to life will not happen.

A second reason why plans fail is that organizations (i.e. the people within them) fail to make tough decisions during and after the planning process. Strategy is about making choices and decisions in order to succeed. During what I call the “strategic dialog” aspects of planning, we need diverse perspectives at the table, which means people do not always see things the same way or come to the same conclusions about what direction to go in.

Such diversity should create strategic options that the organization can look at and then make decisions about. The very nature of dialog and of identifying options is such that not everyone’s individual perspective will prevail. The hope is the diverse perspectives will amalgamate into strategies and common aspirations that are more effective than anyone could produce on their own.  The tough decision part is recognizing that for every YES an organization states, there is at least an implied NO.  While dialog involves compromise, it can’t result in conclusions that please everyone by watering things down to the point where there are at best weak strategies striving for a vague vision of the future.

Another reason why planning can fail is when organizations do not involve the right people in the process.

About Visioning

This is a second posting in the series about Mission, Visioning and Values. See our first posting on “Mission” here.

Vision. Without it, we bump into things; we stumble and fall and ultimately can’t be certain if where we end up is where we want to be.

It’s a powerful and sometimes provocative word. It has numerous meanings. Being able to see what is before you AND being able to conjure up an image of the future are among the definitions or connotations of “vision.”

Picturing your future reality
From an organizational perspective, a vision statement is about picturing a future reality based on your mission statement. In other words, it is about what your purpose (i.e. mission) has accomplished five years or so down the road. In a sense, mission frames your work now to achieve your desired future.

Some are wary of visioning
Some people are wary of vision statements because they fear either that they will be little more than fantasy that no one really pays attention to or create unrealistic objectives that prime the organization for failure. It is easier and safer just to say what your purpose is than it is to announce what you will accomplish five years hence.