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How can nonprofit leaders and boards move beyond short-term fixes and avoid unrealistic plans? The goal is a strategic posture that is grounded, agile, and actionable. Here are some practical steps, drawn from our experience and tools at Risk Alternatives, to develop realistic and adaptive plans:
Start with a brutally honest assessment of your current capacity. A strategic plan must align with the resources and people you have, not an idealized version of the organization. One common reason plans fail is resource misalignment, setting big goals without budgeting for the staff, funds, or tech to execute them. This leads to stalled initiatives and unmet goals.
To avoid this, ensure each strategic objective includes a clear sense of what it will take. If your plan states “launch a new program,” clarify whether you need to hire 3 additional staff members or raise $200,000 in unrestricted funds to accomplish it. If those resources are not available or clearly attainable, revise the goal. It’s not pessimistic to scale ambitions to your reality; it’s prudent. Achieving slightly smaller objectives will build confidence and resilience far more than chasing a grand plan that never materializes.
Don’t let your strategic plan live only in a binder or Google Drive. Break big goals into concrete, short-term actions and embed them into daily operations. Many organizations craft thoughtful plans but then struggle to implement them because strategic imperatives must compete for staff time with operational realities. The strategic plan is seen as a separate, static document, and daily crises take precedence. To bridge this gap, integrate the plan into weekly and monthly routines.
For example, include strategic objectives in management meeting agendas and assign owners and deadlines for each action step. Track progress visibly through dashboards or regular reports. Make sure each team member knows how their day-to-day work connects to the strategic goals. By feeding strategic priorities into an ongoing workflow, you create accountability and keep the plan front and center. We often advise clients to keep strategic goals on their risk register – effectively treating them as important “threats/opportunities” that get monitored just like any other. This ensures you don’t lose sight of the plan, even when fires flare up.
A resilient strategic plan isn’t static; it’s constantly informed by what’s happening in and around your organization. This is where lean risk management plays a crucial role. By identifying and monitoring risks and opportunities regularly, you can adjust course before small issues become full-blown crises. For example, set up a simple risk register where you list your top uncertainties, from funding shortfalls to potential partnerships, and update it quarterly. One nonprofit leader we worked with did this and transformed her organization’s trajectory: she led her team in surfacing hidden worries and opportunities, prioritized them in a risk register with owners and next steps, and instituted brief quarterly check-ins to review progress. The result was “less firefighting, more momentum” – Nancy now leads with clarity, and her board, staff, and funders feel it too.
You can establish a similar early-warning system by routinely asking questions like: What could derail us in the next 6 to 12 months? What actions can we take now? Incorporate those answers into your strategic action plan. This proactive approach means fewer nasty surprises and more agility when conditions change.
Building a realistic, adaptive plan is not a one-person job, nor solely the board’s job. It should be a team effort that spans the organization. Engage staff at all levels in planning and ongoing risk management of the plan. When employees are encouraged to “see something, say something, do something” about potential issues, it creates a culture of vigilance and continuous improvement.
Our Foundations for Growth framework focuses on creating a diverse team that includes everyone from frontline staff to executives. This team comes together to identify risks and opportunities and collaboratively prioritize the most important issues. This inclusive approach not only results in a more thorough plan—due to the consideration of multiple perspectives—but also fosters a sense of ownership among staff. When employees help shape the strategy, they feel more invested in its success.
Likewise, bring your board along on this journey. Boards should be involved in setting strategic direction and educated about the need for flexibility. One practical tip is to inform your board about the status of the top issues on your risk register or dashboard at each meeting, highlighting strategic priorities and any emerging challenges. This keeps the board focused on the big picture and encourages them to support adjustments when needed, rather than viewing any change of plan as a failure. When the board and staff together adopt a mindset of “plan, execute, monitor, adapt,” your nonprofit becomes much more resilient.
Traditional strategic planning can be an overwrought process – taking months of meetings to produce a static plan that is outdated quickly. Instead, consider a lean strategic planning approach that is iterative and focused on actionable clarity. Lean Strategic Planning rejects outdated, static methods and integrates long-term objectives with daily operations. The idea is to create a living strategy that your team can actually use week by week, and that can evolve as new information comes in.
For example, rather than setting 10 lofty goals, a lean plan might focus on three core objectives and map out quarter-by-quarter milestones for each. You act in quick cycles of planning, acting, reviewing, and re-planning. This keeps everyone focused on execution and learning, rather than producing a perfect document. The payoff is a plan that stays relevant and keeps the organization oriented towards its mission even amid change.
By applying these strategies, nonprofit leaders and boards can move beyond the tug-of-war between short-term and long-term. The goal is not to abandon ambitious goals, nor to ignore urgent needs; it’s to create a feedback loop between the two. When your strategic plan is both aspirational and firmly grounded in current reality, it becomes a powerful tool for resilience. You can navigate crises without losing sight of your mission and pursue your goals without tripping over foreseeable hurdles.
In our work with nonprofits, we've witnessed the transformations. Leaders transition from feeling like captains of a storm-tossed ship to becoming navigators charting a course with radar and lifeboats prepared. Boards move away from enforcing unrealistic agendas or micromanaging daily operations and instead focus on providing strategic guidance and overseeing risks. Staff feel more empowered because they see how planning ties into their daily work and how their feedback on front-line realities is valued in strategic decisions. These shifts are the essence of managing for resilience, and I’m confident that with the right approaches, Challenge 11 can become your greatest opportunity to strengthen your nonprofit for the future.
Risk Alternatives enhances the resilience and sustainability of nonprofits through comprehensive tools, training, and support. For inquiries about conducting a risk inventory or other matters, please contact Risk Alternatives at info@tedbilich.com.