Nonprofits are known for making the most out of limited resources and budgets. Due to the “do more with less” mentality, many nonprofit team members are juggling a variety of projects. This is tricky business as it often leads to urgency superseding importance.

The result? Time and capacity are limited and minor problems are ignored while major ones continue unresolved. 

Strategic planning can offer a tremendous opportunity to nonprofits, allowing you to develop your capacity and move beyond reacting to situations as they arise. As a nonprofit leader, you’re likely looking into strategic planning to help transform your nonprofit from this reactive mentality to one of prioritizing core actions that will tackle complex matters in ways that are sustainable.

Transforming your nonprofit will involve changing mindsets, systems, and people. A framework will first help you understand the different approaches to change and provide a tool with which you can identify which approach is your current reality and which one is your desired reality. 

This article will provide you with that framework and also highlight how strategic planning will help move your nonprofit from a reactive to a proactive operation.

Framework

The Four Approaches to the Future offers a unique perspective that can be leveraged for your organization’s transformation. It's more than just a concept - this is an invaluable tool you can use when making decisions and forming your mindset, allowing you to look ahead in order to redefine how you approach your vision for the future.

Reactive Approach

Rather than planning for the future, the reactive approach is more of a survival tactic; this means responding to what's happening in real-time with instinctual actions driven by each distinct situation.

Responsive Approach

Taking a responsive approach to the future means pausing and exploring all potential solutions before making any moves. This strategy is driven by problem-solving, allowing us to be prepared for what lies ahead.

Proactive Approach

Anticipating the future through proactive means can provide a wealth of opportunities. By recognizing upcoming trends and predicting their outcomes, we can identify potential advantages on our horizon.

Inventive Approach

By imagining the possibilities for our future, we can create a vision of what is achievable and use it to plan effectively. Team innovation lies at the heart of this endeavor. By setting goals and charting clear paths forward through imaginative collaborations, your team can work together to ensure success.

If you are currently in a reactive or responsive approach, you’re likely exhausted and wondering how to get out ahead of challenges and grow your nonprofit. Strategic planning is a process that can help move your organization into the proactive and inventive approach.

Be Proactive and Inventive Through Strategic Planning

By putting a plan in place with specific objectives and action steps that are organized into achievable goals, an organization is enabled to meaningfully pursue its mission. 

Strategic planning is a valuable tool for nonprofits looking to establish a more secure footing and plan for their future needs. By examining how your organization operates and the resources needed to support its mission, you can set realistic goals and manage your organization more effectively.

For example, a plan with stated focus areas and goals will help you make decisions when another goal or focus arises. You’ll be able to differentiate the urgent from the important. Additionally, regular goal progress updates and measurements on key metrics for your plan will also provide you with data that will help you determine if resources are properly allocated.

One of the key outcomes of strategic planning is increased capacity. Through an audit of current operations and an assessment of what is needed moving forward, organizations can begin to develop stability, build positive relationships with their community and funders, expand operational capability, and make progress on program objectives.

Once you have a plan and process in place, you’ll find you can be more proactive in your approach to focus areas and goals. If you were previously at a work deficit on some projects, you’ll “catch up” and have the capacity to get ahead or even invent new solutions to your goals.

Conclusion

You have likely felt at one time or another that there are more problems than you have the time and resources to handle adequately. Instead of wasting energy struggling with smaller, often redundant concerns, use strategic planning as a way to focus on what is truly manageable and effective long term. In adopting a strategic planning process, you’ll be able to lead your organization away from reacting to small fires and approach being proactive in response to focus areas and goals. 

We recommend reviewing the framework outlined above and document what percentage of your working time is currently spent in each of the four approaches. Then consider where you want to be by documenting what your ideal percentage of time spent in each approach would be. 

After documenting your current and ideal status, consider how you get there. What steps can you take now to move your organization to that ideal percentage?