Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is an integral part of any successful initiative. It is not a single event, but a series of events focused on plan development, review, and revision. Strategic planning involves needs assessment and identification, showing how existing services do not meet particular needs, and explaining how the implementation of your program will provide the needed services and achieve the desired goals. Next steps involve a process of resource mapping, the development of program goals and objectives, and timelines for program implementation. Most sites conduct at least annual reviews of and make revisions as necessary to their strategic plan.

Involving key stakeholders in strategic planning early in your project’s life can help sustainability strategies emerge and take hold before grant funding expires. A strategic planning process will help to identify the goals and objectives that your project and your partners’ programs share, and to point out opportunities where programs can work together and share functions. This critical phase can be enhanced by taking the time to understand and “map” each partner’s investment and integration with their existing programs and systems. Strategic planning with a broad stakeholder group can also help embed your project’s goals and activities in the community’s long-range work, helping to make other potential supporters, such as policymakers or local legislators, aware of your project.