JGA Blog listing page

At its core, thoughtful, regular strategic planning is essential to nonprofit organizations. Successful mission delivery and fulfillment, organizational growth and expansion, and a solid financial footing all depend on your organization’s commitment to establishing a shared vision for the future and identifying the specific strategies and action steps needed to realize that vision.

Together, our global family, experienced something we never could have imagined during the COVID-19 pandemic. And, with the Delta variant of the virus raging across our country and world, it’s hard to predict when the pandemic will be behind us. 

We know most nonprofit organizations experienced some disruption caused by the pandemic, and in these times, the work of the social sector is even more critically important. Organizations serving the greater good must continue to clarify the purpose and aim of their work as well as planning for their futures.

Life is full of opportunities and challenges, and we certainly faced our share in 2020. However, not everything we’ve gone through in the last year is negative. There are some lessons learned we may want to keep – opportunities to capitalize on in the future. It is important to learn from each challenge so you can prepare, mitigate, and more easily turn the next challenge into an opportunity. That’s called resiliency. It sounds easy—but let’s be honest: it isn’t.

Resiliency is the ability to recover from a setback, adapt to new challenges, and keep going in the face of adversity. In a nonprofit, as a staff or volunteer leader, one of the best tools to foster resiliency no matter what is thrown at your organization—internally or externally—is a strategic plan, which:

• provides a road map to lead your organization from where you are now to where you would like to be in the future;
• sets priorities and focuses your organization’s resources; and
• establishes measurable goals and a template to evaluate progress and adapt to a changing environment.

On a recent JGA webinar, I shared six tips to help you create a resilient organization by building resiliency into your strategic planning.