Why Do We Need to Do a Strategic Plan?

An organization that is growing and hopes to sustain that growth needs a set of strategies to guide its program development, build a solid financial foundation, and prepare for challenges that lie ahead. In other words, it needs a strategic plan. Simply put, a strategic plan is a vision of your organization's future and the basic steps required to achieve that future. A good plan should include goals and objectives, desired outcomes, metrics for measuring your progress, timelines, and budgets.

Although the ultimate goal of the strategic planning process is to develop a plan, the value of the exercise often lies in the process itself. Strategic planning affords stakeholders in an organization the opportunity to learn more about the organization, to share their perceptions of its strengths and weaknesses, and to discuss critical issues affecting, or likely to affect, the organization in the future. The process should be designed to generate decisions arrived at by consensus. Single-person planning, while efficient, almost always eliminates the opportunity to distribute ownership of the plan — and, by extension, responsibility for the organization's future — among key stakeholders. In contrast, a consensual approach is likely to ensure that key stakeholders believe in the organization's vision of the future and are committed to achieving it.

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