SWB Consulting Services Blog

A strategic plan is a document that establishes the direction of an organization. It can be a single page or fill up a binder, depending on the size and complexity of the business and work.

Most managers can benefit from having a strategic plan. The process of developing a plan helps the manager (and the team) step back and examine where they are, where they want to go, and how they are most likely to get there. In the absence of a plan, work still gets done on a day-to-day basis but often lacks a sense of purpose and priority.

There are seven basic elements of a strategic plan. While much more is often included in the plan, these seven elements will help you get started.

Read more: Seven Elements of a Strategic Plan

The "peaceful transition of power" has been much in the news lately. Transitions happen every day in business and in the not-for-profit sector. In government, decisions are made by the voters. Among nonprofits, the responsibility falls to the Board of Directors.

Read more: Succession Planning for Nonprofits

SWB Consulting Services was honored to present at the Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute Winter Meeting with Helen Stepowany of HPR Consulting. Helen and I had co-facilitated a complex strategic plan during 2020 that was presented at the conference.

Read more: Strategic Planning Case Presentation

Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are defined as the conditions in which people are born, live, grow, work, and age. These conditions can affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes.

Read more: Social Determinants of Health

This time last year, no one could have imagined the 2020 that actually happened. I am thankful that I have not gotten sick, and all my family are coronavirus-free. However, we do have friends who got COVID-19 and were laid low for several days.

Read more: Year-end Reflection

The recent US election demonstrated that almost half of all Americans have a very different World View than another almost half of Americans. The people in the gap between the Trump voters and the Biden voters may be only 10% of the US population. How is it possible that so many people see the country so differently, when the facts on the ground are the same?

Read more: Tips to Overcome Differing World Views on Teams

There is a lot of buzz about sustainability during these challenging times.

Traditional sources of revenue have been squeezed by stay-at-home orders, public health concerns and reductions in government funding. Special events, performances and classes have had to be postponed or cancelled. A program that had been a large percentage of an agency’s budget may have suddenly dried up, while a relatively small program may have experienced an uptick in demand.

It is almost impossible to plan with so many factors still unknown!

I recently read Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka & Steve Zimmerman. The book is not new, but I had not come across it previously. It provides a step-by-step guide for nonprofit business analysis.

Read more: Nonprofit Sustainability

I would like to share a resource that may be helpful: Rick Tamlyn’s The Bigger Game.

I was fortunate to be able to participate in a Bigger Game Retreat with Rick Tamlyn and several other Bigger Game trainers at beautiful Silver Lake north of Albany. The Bigger Game is often thought of as a tool for aspiring entrepreneurs, but it can be just as effective for "intrapreneurs" – leaders inside an organization who feel the need to move away from "business as usual."

Read more: Using Bigger Game to Jumpstart your Career