Growth/Strategic Plan
A successful strategic or growth plan lays out a clear path over a future period (3-5 years) with concrete steps to get there and benchmarks along the way to make sure that you do. In essence a good strategic plan is very simple: this is where we want to go, this is how we are going to get there, now get to work.
There are 7 basic steps to Social Velocity’s growth planning process:
1. The Team: Create a strategic planning working group/committee made up of key board members and key management staff. This group will meet periodically to guide the process, create and refine the goals and objectives, finalize the plan and make sure it is being executed.
2. SWOT: Uncover the strengths and weaknesses (of the internal organization) and opportunities and threats (facing the organization from external circumstances) by surveying staff, board, and other key constituents to the organization.
3. Market Research: Research the nonprofit’s competitors (those providing similar services in the community) and consumers (funders and clients) in order to understand trends and reactions to those trends. This will help the nonprofit determine how to plan their strategies given the external marketplace.
4. Vision and Mission: Revisit/refine the vision and mission of the organization and determine what the vision for growth is.
5. Goals: Create 3-5 broad, measurable, achievable goals for the organization in the specific time frame of the plan.
6. Objectives: Break each of the 3-5 broad goals into 3-5 measurable objectives, or steps, to get there. What is it going to take to make each goal happen?
7. Operationalize the Plan: For each objective, create a timeline with activities, deliverables, people responsible and due dates. Put this operational plan into a tracking system that all staff are comfortable with and will use on a regular basis to update, refine, and monitor their activities.
Investor Pitch for Growth Funding
It is not enough to create a great plan for growth. You also need to find the money to execute the growth plan. Social Velocity helps a nonprofit transfer their plan into a pitch to investors for growth capital. The steps to do that are:
- Create a case for support of growth which includes the need, the opportunity, social return on investment, etc.
- Determine how to break the overall growth budget into investment amounts
- Create a prospect list of potential investors
With the pitch and prospect list in hand, the nonprofit is ready to go out and secure funding for growth.
Find Out More
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