Karen’s Ultimate Test: Is this a Good Plan?

We like to hike, especially as summer heat gives way to cool fall mornings. Sometimes we come to bridges. Stone bridges are good. Solid wood bridges are good. But open slat or rope or wobbly logs over swiftly moving creeks—not my favorite. Nonetheless, I will step upon them to cross if I can see that they will bring me to where I want to go… in advance.

Your plans should also let you “see” that you can reach your destination from where you are. With firm plans you can feel that the next step you take and each one after that will let you place your foot on something solid that leads you to your destination.

Can you in your minds eye see in advance how your plan gets you from here to there? How many of your plans, big and small, get you from here to there—in your mind's eye?

Planning, The Final Step Bridge Building

By far, the most complicated and most important step of planning is bridge building. The purpose of the bridge you will build is to get you from here to there. The bridge represents the steps you will take to move between these two spaces. A good bridge closes the gap between the two locations and it carries solid traffic. This is complex thinking. It involves concepts, making connections, identifying steps, estimating timing, using resources, testing ideas, and research. It involves eliminating good choices that do not work, coping with unknowns and not meeting everyone’s expectations. Throughout the planning process, hope is critical. You must believe that solid plans are possible and that the results will be worthwhile. Finally, good bridges and good plans are not built in a day or afternoon. Invest time and energy to create your bridge or plan from where you are now to your vision.

When it actually comes down to making “the plan” how do you organize the process so that nothing is overlooked?

(For more on the first two steps of planning, see my recent entries in this blog.)

The Often Missed Step of Planning: Where You Are Now

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My office is near U.S. 41 in Sarasota—the main commercial artery of the city. Along this corridor I have standard errands, both north and south. To save time, I run different errands en route to meetings depending if the meeting is north or south respectively. This plan saves gas, energy and waiting at stoplights. At your nonprofit, your plans will work best if you also know your starting place. This Where You Are Now is the second essential stage of good planning.

What does it mean to know where you are now? Knowing includes obvious items; your physical location, financial status and pending staff changes. It also includes subtle issues, like market conditions, a planning group’s comfort level with each other, and if you have the information you need to plan, etc. As an example of the last, last week a group of consultants planned what with a series of recorded teleconferences. We failed to make much progress until we determined that we had recorded the previous sessions—a needed piece of information.

Another component of Where You Are Now that is especially fruitful for experienced groups is information about other planning experiences your group completed. What was successful about them? Lacking? Do people have positive expectations about up-coming planning sessions? Was the fiscal piece strong or does it need additional effort? Identifying these or related issues is “knowing where you are now” and the second step in good planning.

What kinds of questions do you ask and answer when you look at your current situation as part of the planning process?

(For the first step of good planning read this entry: The Critical First Step of Income and Other Planning: Destination.)

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The Critical First Step of Income and Other Planning: Destination

Our last entry talked about the definition of good planning. This one continues along similar lines and explores the first step of all good planning: Knowing Where You Want to Go.

Most nonprofits know where they want to go. Like New Englanders in January, everyone agrees, they want to go south for February vacation. Likewise, your nonprofit may agree that your “south” is to improve the quality of the bay water, the readiness of children for kindergarten or the lives of people with developmental disabilities. While you may know the direction, good planning demands that you stop and clarify what exactly constitutes your destination. After all, Miami, Tucson and the Caribbean are south as are Brasilia, South Africa and Newark.

What, for example, does it mean to help people with developmental disabilities to live better lives? To do good planning it matters if you’re talking about housing, employment, family relations or health matters. Each destination requires a different plan.

Knowing your destination allows you to draw a straight line to it from where you are. Good plans reduce expensive meandering. Clear destinations also create vision energy at the start of planning. (Won’t it be exciting to see this in action?”) This energy is needed as fuel for the deep-thinking work ahead.

How has clarifying your destination helped your planning process? How has lack of clarity created confusion?

What is Good Planning?

Planning is one of the many overused but little understood terms tossed around nonprofit organizations. Recently, several consultants from this blog were organizing an audio-conference for nonprofit board members on the topic. We started our planning by discussing the definition of planning. Fifteen-minutes later while we had made progress, we had also uncovered more questions than answers. If it took three experts fifteen minutes to begin to agree on what planning is—you will probably find some uncertainty at your organization. Yet, planning is something we do everyday. After all, you plan when you run out paper and make a note to pick it up after your meeting. You plan when you prepare for your special event. You plan when you determine how exactly you will improve transportation service for seniors.

For starters, here is a definition: planning consists of tasks, energy and resources applied to create a desired future. Good planning includes three components:

1. Where we want to go (the vision).

2. Where you are now.

3. The bridge you will build to get to the vision.

These three components are universal to all planning. This includes your smallest efforts (where should we hold our special event?) to big questions (what is the most effective way to cure cancer?)

How can you tell if your planning was good? If you can create, in your mind’s eye, the bridge you will build and imagine using it to travel from where you are to where you want to go.

When you plan, all three areas need your attention. Which area do you find that you neglect the most? Did you ever stop to define what planning was before you begin to do it?

The Barricade: Solve Your Main Income Challenge

You are driving smoothly along on the interstate. Ahead you see orange and white saw horses blocking your path. Behind them, large earth-moving equipment moves mountains of dirt. You slow down and prepare to stop.

Almost every viable nonprofit confronts a barricade in the road ahead. The barricade usually concerns income. For established organizations, the barricade is lack of money to pay for one specific need. For many, it is operating expenses or some portion of it, like staff costs. For others, their barricade equals funds for their least-donor-appealing clients. Funding for children might be relatively easy but for young adult males difficult. Is your barricade funding for one of your yearly production? Or, is it a capital need? Organizations that provide housing units barricade is money to construct or buy more units. What is your barricade?

Whatever makes up your barricade, it keeps you from achieving your mission in quantity. To make progress, you need to remove or reduce it. Do you believe the barricade can be removed or improved? How have you sought to overcome it in the past? What steps are you taking now? Have you decided to build new road or create a detour?

Our work, for the last seventeen years, has been helping nonprofits identify ways to make progress on their most pressing needs—often reducing or removing income-related barricades. We can help you to identify the key ingredients required for your success, find innovative ways to solve them (perhaps borrowing from sources beyond the nonprofit field) and move ahead. Contact us if you need help removing a barricade, barricades, building a new road or finding a detour that works.

Space Solutions

The November issue of Added Value, our newsletter for nonprofit leaders, contains an article with fifteen tried and true space solutions for nonprofit organization. To read the article click here. These solutions will help you to solve many of your nonprofit space challenges.

However, you probably have used other solutions to solve space dilemmas. Everyday nonprofits creatively solve space needs. Help us to grow this solution list. Share your ideas here and we will update the article and credit you. Help nonprofits move from spaced out to spaced in.

Thinking of Entering a New Market?

Here are five key questions to ask and thoughtfully answer as you plan this step:

1. Who are you?

2. What services will you offer?

3. Why are you needed?

4. What value will you provide?

5. How will you relate to other efforts?

Your customers, potential donors and supporters will ask these questions, even if they use other words. Use your answers to structure your planning efforts.

Return on Every Dollar You Spend

What do a group of marketing specialists have to share with nonprofit leaders about how to make their limited advertising dollars count?

Plenty, it turns out.

The following condenses down five 8 x 11 pages of notes from today’s one-hour presentation with experts J. Clifford Curley, Jane Bennett, Rue Ann Porter, Carrie Rasmussen and Gayle Williams during the 2010 Nonprofit PR and Marketing Forum.

In your ads and marketing materials:
• J. Clifford Curley suggests we use donor centric communications or “people talk.”
• Jane Bennett gave four rules of thumb for preparing winning ads: attention (draw eye), interest (you have seconds), desire (I want to be involved) and action (call for response). Knowing your vision, mission, strategy, business goals, marketing plan, target audience, etc., comes before designing ads or other materials.
• Gayle Williams shares that social media is a game changer—yes, but it also not a game changer. Social media is another tool or tactic for your nonprofit but it needs to fit within your overall strategy (not a game changer). Yes, social media is a game changer. It provides platforms that allow you to speak directly to your audience.
• Rue Ann Porter reminds us that PR and paid ads can work very well together. She suggests you consider your key prospect in both quantitative and personal aspects. What is their age and demographics about them? But, also what is their day like?
• When you look for media partners, Carrie Rasmussen recommends that you know what you want and what you want to achieve. She encourages you to be aware of the benefits you offer to the community and to your media partner. Collaboration is a powerful tool to help you “stand out.”

Overall, how can you take advantage of limited advertising dollars? Much planning and some work. Find your content in a quality strategic plan. Develop a PR and Marketing plan that includes the messages you want to share in the next few months. Then, work the plan.

Summer Reading: The House That Love Built

Yesterday one of my emails included this quote from Jean Monnet, “Nothing is possible without individuals; nothing is lasting without institutions.” The need for individuals and institutions and the potential conflict between them recapitulates one of the themes in The House That Love Built--the story of Millard and Linda Fuller and Habitat for Humanity.

Does it really take individuals? When Fuller was asked about how much money you needed to form a Habitat chapter, he said, “You have to have at least a dollar. It would be fiscally irresponsible to start a project with less than a dollar. But if you have dollar and you’ve got committed folks you can start and God will bless your meager resources…” Today worldwide Habitat for Humanity and The Fuller Center for Housing, which the Fuller’s began in 2005, have over 1,500 affiliates and partners—while it takes a more than a dollar to sustain them, single dollars created the initial foundations for over 350,000 homes these two organizations have built.

While the book is often a treatise in defense of Fullers, the book’s value for the nonprofit leader is the questions it raises about founders and the institutions they create. Might it have been possible for Habitat and Fuller to reach an accord without the public conflict that took place when the board fired Fuller? What might the Fuller have done differently? The Board? When might those efforts have started? How can an organization continue to benefit from the gifts of dynamic founders if and when they come into conflict with organization building? From this example, if you are a board member, what changes will you make at your organization? If you are a founder, how can you help your legacy to continue?

The Doors in Your Castle

Picture yourself in the large castle your organization has developed over the ages. It is well built and solid. Today, you discover a new part of the castle. A hallway leads you into an expansive room filled with doors. Each door represents a different future you might pursue. Perhaps, you would like to go to the garden outside, because it is lovely and full of fruit. Or, perhaps you would like to climb high to the turret and see the countryside around you. Or, it might be time to clean out the dungeon.

Finding all of the doors and identifying where they lead is critical to future planning. Finding all the doors in advance helps you to find all the great possibilities. Finding all doors allows you to compare and to contrast different futures—before you follow them. You don’t do this alone. You ask others for their help. Finding all the doors invites others to bring you ideas that may intrigue and entice you.

Finding all of your possible doors the first step of future planning for nonprofit organizations, the “D” in the four-step DOOR process. Read more about D.O.O.R. in this month’s Added Value.

Build A Hive

What if you gathered the best brainpower for your nonprofits success?

In recent weeks, we’ve all heard hundreds of news reports about BP’s response to the Gulf Crisis. One set of reports has particular interest to nonprofit organizations. These contain information about how BP created The Hive as its “Apollo 13 Brain Center”. Do you have a challenge you want to tackle? What if you created a Hive to collect the best thinking about your nonprofit and your challenge? Here is how to build one based on the reports.

• Set aside a creative, thinking space. The Hive is a repurposed research center and “houses a dozen video screens…” You need space where a group can work undisturbed. Make it large enough so everyone can be seated comfortably and see each other. Add computers with Internet access so information can be gathered and checked on the spot. Include space for ideas to be captured, posted and viewed by all with easel pads or white boards.

• Best minds. Gather the best minds to talk about what your organization might do to respond to the challenge. Who might you invite to your Hive? Consider board members, former board members, staff of local foundations and civic leaders.

Hundreds of engineers from universities, rival oil companies and the federal government immediately went back to work, in shifts lasting 13 hours or more.

• Dream team. Okay, you drafted a list of the best minds. Now, imagine who would be on your dream team. How about leaders in the community known for their creative approaches, even if they now do little in the nonprofit world? Academics? How about a leader from a foundation that specializes in your work from across the county? These team members may not be available, but unless you ask them, you will never know.

Then came the "dream team" that President Barack Obama had ordered his Nobel-winning energy secretary, Steven Chu, to assemble: out-of-the-box thinkers including a nuclear physicist, a pioneer on Mars drilling techniques, an MIT professor whose research interests include "going faster on my snowboard," an expert on the hydrogen bomb, and a controversial astrophysicist…

As a Gulf resident agonizing over the oil spill despoiling our beautiful gulf, I remain hopeful that soon the leak will be plugged so that full recovery can begin. One good thing to come of out this disaster is that nonprofits can also learn how to build hives to call forth and capture great thinking to solve their challenges.

For some Hive tools, see How to Be More Successful With Your Brainstorming and see this article on building trust.

Time To Breathe Deeply

Happy first day of summer! Breathe deeply and relax.

In summer, many nonprofits leaders have more flexibility in their schedule. One nonprofit takes the whole month of August to learn and plan. If you would like things to be less hectic this fall, consider investing time this summer the same way. We have a beach bag full of new resources to help you improve your time management and strategy planning. They include:

• Mission Brilliant Podcasts


• Added Value Newsletters


• Time Management Workshop (in conjunction with the Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa Bay)


• Raising the Bar on Strategic Planning in Your Organization Teleconference


• Time Management for Nonprofit Leaders Booklet
To start you off, here is one tip:

27. Block Islands. For large tasks, set aside a two-hour block of time. Repeat over several days or weeks, as needed, to make progress on key activities. Prioritize these time islands just like you would appointments with key donors.

As you learn and plan this summer, you will be able to breathe even more deeply knowing that you and your organization will be in a stronger and better place this fall.

Looking at the Grown Up Side of You

I just received a new magazine from Disney World –not unusual for a Florida household. This one caught my eye. Along with the recognizable Disney logo on the masthead was the phrase, “the Grown-Up Side of Disney.” While I think of Disney parks as ideal for the 8-25 crowd, Disney also offers many grown-up opportunities, like culinary events, adult classes and garden festivals.

Its time to play, Non-profit What If. . .that is, take a successful concept used elsewhere. Consider how you can apply it at your nonprofit for fun, profit and mission enhancement.

Taking the Disney approach, if your organization offers children services, what is your grown-up side? Can you strengthen your children’s services with some adult services? Perhaps opportunities like parenting classes and then also, opportunities to approach donors with interests in family welfare.

On the other hand, if you offer services for seniors, what is your young adult or child side? Perhaps support for caregivers or programs for grandchildren and also, perhaps a place for donors who have interests in serving children.

Take this beyond age related ideas. If you are a very serious organization, like a disease eradication entity, consider your other side. Is it playful? Proud of your progress? And vice versa. If you are playful entity, like a children’s hands-on museum, what is your serious side?

Continue to play “Nonprofit What If” with additional pairs of opposites. Where are you missing an audience or donor because you have yet to share a hidden or less apparent side? Where do you shine below other’s radar screens?

For more creative thinking about your mission, message and programming, see
Your Future. At What Are You Really, Really Good?

Can You Afford To Be Forward Thinking?

A recent presenter shared that nonprofits were so busy worrying about survival that they could not look ahead. Yet, if we look into the past we see that forward looking and survival are not two different events, but two components of one event.

For example, the Y’s website shares, “The Great Depression brought dramatic drops in Y income, some as high as 50 percent.” However, in the Depression the Y developed program models involving exercise and educational classes were both up, along with vocational training and camping….” The idea spread widely and YMCAs discovered they could survive handily if they served a large number of people and had low building payments. In fact, the Chicago Y was able to organize a new South Shore branch in the depths of the Depression.”

Along with survival, think forward. Consider these questions: How can you enlarge the pie? How might you include more members of the community in your mission? How might you improve the stewardship of your current resources, i.e., spend your time better? If money were not object what would you do differently to improve your outcomes? What might we do differently, since money is an object, to achieve outcomes? How will you take advantage of the coming up swing?

For more forward thinking strategic questions, email karen@kedconsult.com, ask for the Month-By-Month Strategic Organization article.

Stuck on Nonprofit Goals?

Does your nonprofit struggle with setting goals? Next time you embark on a goal setting exercise, consider adopting the following four universal nonprofit needs as a framework:

1. Create great mission outcomes
2. Develop leadership
3. Provide resources to create great mission outcomes
4. Develop realistic future strategies to do more of the above

You can use these goals to build a strategic planning session. And, you can also use them to measure your current status with the following.

Where do you stand on each? To find out, use this quick exercise at your next board meeting. On the 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the highest, ask your board members to privately rank your organization’s achievement of these goals by placing a number of an index card you distribute for each area. Collect the card and post the results. Discuss: What reactions do you have to our results? What do our ranking tell us about what we need to do next? Are we investing in the right priorities? Do we invest adequate time on them?

For more reading on the topic of creating successful nonprofits, see: Karen’s Ten Steps to Create a World-Class Program.

Toyota R Us

Recently, I had lunch with a local nonprofit leader. Earlier this year, her organization faced a crisis when one of their former employees was arrested. We compared that event and similar challenges at nonprofits to the recent Toyota recalls. Like Toyota, we must gather large public respect to advance our work. Like Toyota, we build our future on trust. Like Toyota, errors, lapses and missteps, violate that trust and can rock our foundation. Like Toyota, we need to respond to crisis (a time when a difficult decision must be made.)

Toyota Not R Us. We do not have to follow Toyota’s missteps. Nonprofits with a solid mission, vision and a clear understanding of their strategies —have the tools they need to respond to recalls, arrests and other crisis. These tools can answer questions like: how can we continue to best serve our customers in light of this incident? What does the public need to know? How do we avoid such events in the future? How can we communicate our plans to do so?

Mission, vision and clear strategy thinking are not only for blue-sky days. They are musts for days when our organizations are rocked by storms. These thinking tools help us to understand the actions we must take to weather the storms that are part of life. For a list of strategic questions to ask your board see http://www.kedconsult.com/articles-resources/month-by-month-the-strategic-organization/.

How to Grow Your Organization’s Esteem

High esteem organizations say things like, “We are a recognized and valued partner in our community” and “Even thought we are just a small (substitute regional, independent, etc.) nonprofit, we make a tremendous difference in the lives of those we serve.” Growing your organizations esteem will yield high esteem results including more resources for your mission.

I’ve just completed the January edition of my newsletter Added Value. In it I include a dozen practical tips to grow your organization’s esteem. Here is one:

Take Calculated Risks. Remember the first time you climbed to the high diving board? You stood at very tip of the board, toes over, feet secure, body wobbling, wondering if this new feat was a good idea. The other kids, all experts, holler for you to hurry up. Faced with the disgruntled mob behind, you dived. And, even if it was a belly flop, you were proud that you climbed high to take the leap. Take calculated risks to enhance your organization’s esteem.

If you would like whole article plus an article about how to create high esteem proposals, email me at info@kedconsult.com

Quit Your Once Per Year Strategic Planning Retreat

Is one of your year-end tasks to set-up a strategic retreat for your board? If so, take the one-time-per-year get strategic-planning event off the list. Instead, plan a retreat plus eleven months worth of strategic thinking conversations to help your board and organization be more strategic.

Why?

-Good and regular strategy thinking eases decision-making. Henry Mintzberg writes that strategic thinking is seeing beyond, it constructs the future itself and it invents a world that would not otherwise be.

-Boards who dig deep into strategy and help you to do deep thinking, spend less time digging into management details. When you serve boards their main course, the strategy, they have less time in feasting on staff responsibilities.

Here is one idea to use in stimulating a strategic conversation:

Hand out a photo of your organization from Google Earth to your board members. Ask them what happens when we look at our work big picture? What relationships of ours do you see differently from this perspective? How might others see us?

My December 15 newsletter (available to newsletter subscribers only; email me at info@kedconsult.com to receive a copy of it, subject line: “strategic.”) shares a month-by-month plan of strategic conversation topics suitable for your board.