Using Evidence During the Strategic Planning Process

‘Strategic’ and ‘plan’ are fairly straightforward terms, but what does it mean when they are combined and used to guide an organization? Strategic plans can be powerful tools that outline near- to long-term goals, tactics to achieve those goals, and metrics to evaluate success. However, organizations often create strategic plans and then set them aside when the day-to-day chaos ensues. Additionally, when organizations fail to engage all stakeholders in the planning process, a lack of buy-in can occur throughout the organization, leading to an ineffective plan.

Before passing up the opportunity to create a strategic plan because it hasn’t worked for organizations in the past, consider how you can make a more effective plan. Collecting data before, during, and after the planning process may be the key. Data and evidence can come in a variety of forms.

Here are some pieces of data that may be helpful to collect and review prior to creating a strategic plan. 

Survey Your People

Priorities and goals should not be set only by those who speak up during the strategic plan meeting. Interviews and surveys can be used to learn the strengths and weaknesses of your organization from a variety of perspectives, and also identify challenges and opportunities for the future. Collect feedback from all groups of the organization — leaders, employees, the people you serve, donors, partners, etc.

Quantitative information can be collected from electronic surveys using platforms such as Google Forms or Survey Monkey. For instance, if you want to find out how satisfied your employees are, on a scale from 1 to 5, an anonymous survey is a great way to collect this type of data. Qualitative, anecdotal information can be a powerful tool to better understand the various stakeholder perspectives, however, the data can be complicated to analyze and summarize. 

Review Your Financial History

New strategic priorities tend to require funding support, thus, it’s important for organizations to understand their financial situation before beginning the strategic plan process. A detailed knowledge of historical revenue and expenses is integral for projecting opportunities for future revenue sources and budgets for new initiatives. If the organization has not kept detailed financial records in the past, this is a great time to start. During this step, it is also important to consider the capacity for expanding revenue sources or expenses that can be reduced in order to implement the completed strategic plan.

Get Familiar With Your Governing Documents

While governing documents may not seem like ‘data’, they can provide an important overview of your organization’s structure and scope, and also help you identify potential constraints. An organization’s bylaws are intentionally amendable and can be adapted with new priorities, if the board feels it necessary. Employee handbooks could also be updated to reflect the new goals. However, before these changes can be made after the strategic planning process, the leaders of the organization must understand where they are starting.

Collect Demographic Information

In the past few years, it has become very common to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities into strategic plans as awareness of implicit bias and systemic racism has grown. If you are not already collecting demographic information about the people who are part of your organization — leaders, employees, people you serve, etc. — anonymously collecting these data points, in aggregate, can help you to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. 

The U.S. Census Bureau demographic information is a good place to start, but you may also want to collect additional information that makes sense for your organization. For instance, you may want to find out how many of the people you serve qualify for free or reduced lunch, which is not included in the U.S. Census Bureau questionnaire. 

Let the Data Guide the Planning Process

Now that you are equipped with data to evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges, you can use this information to guide your strategic planning process. Your strategic planning facilitator should summarize the data collected and share a report of the findings with your organization’s leaders prior to the strategic planning meeting. It is important for leaders to review the data before setting goals. 

Buy in from stakeholders will be key to achieve the goals set by the strategic plan. While only a handful of leaders will be part of the strategic planning meeting to set the organization’s priorities, the priorities should reflect the feedback received from the broader group of stakeholders. Collecting feedback on an initial draft of the strategic plan from these populations can also promote ownership and buy in when it comes time to implement the plan. 

Measuring Success

Another value of collecting baseline information from stakeholders prior to the strategic planning process is that you can use it to measure success after implementing the strategic plan. Each goal in the strategic plan should have a measurable outcome. For instance, perhaps you set a goal to increase the revenue earned from grassroots donors by XX%. The financial information you gathered prior to the strategic planning process provides a baseline for evaluating success in fundraising efforts. 

Conclusions

Utilizing empirical data to make decisions during a strategic planning process can help leaders to set better priorities, promote buy in from employees and other stakeholders, and provide baseline metrics for measuring success. An important caveat is that the data must be responsibly collected using methodology that the entire organization finds trustworthy. If the data is deemed unreliable for some reason, the value of the information is greatly reduced. Finally, making data-driven decisions is only one key to success during a strategic planning process and should be paired with effective facilitation, open communication, and realistic goals and timelines.