Picture this: You’re sitting by the window at your monthly board meeting. Through the glass, you can tell it’s a beautiful, sunny day outside. Your board and advisors have decided to create your nonprofit’s strategic plan, but there’s nothing you want to do less than spend your day—or several days—going through the planning process. 

You’re not alone if you resent the idea of strategic planning. However, a simple and effective plan is essential in determining success.

One reason your strategic plan may be failing is because your executive director won’t champion the process and promote accountability. A strong leader is essential to run an organization, but sometimes leadership is swamped with responsibilities. In strategic planning, the executive director should serve as the champion of the process. This is a more passive role, where the ED is focused on delegating roles to the team and keeping a supportive attitude. Further, another important aspect is to appoint a co-champion that will keep the executive director accountable. It’s a lot like having a workout partner that makes sure that you take no days off. 

Your perception of strategic planning may be that it’s a tedious event, but not an ongoing process. However, if you’re not regularly measuring your progress, your organization quickly becomes bored by the plan, you get distracted by other pressing issues, and the plan gets shelved. In the end, you don’t hit your goals and you lose some faith in strategic planning. Instead of just creating a strategic plan, create a strategic planning process. Your strategic plan should be cycled through annually, and the plan should be reviewed, measured, and revised quarterly or more. 

Unfortunately, many small organizations put a lot of effort into making a visually-appealing, ambitious strategic plan. However, more likely than not, this is complete overkill. Author James Hollan describes that the best strategic plans should be just two pages. Hollan’s example reflects the same two-section strategic plan that we use with our customers. The point is that a simple approach will work faster, allow more flexibility, isn’t overwhelming, be easier to communicate, and will yield more results.

If you’d like to read the full article about strategic planning, we’ve been featured on NonProfit PRO. Check out more guidance that will help you overcome the reasons why your strategic plan is failing!