Strategic Planning Facilitation

We Help You Develop a Roadmap to the Future for Your Association. 

We can guide you through every step of the process, from defining your vision and purpose to creating a detailed plan of action to achieve your goals. Whether you're reviewing an existing plan or wanting a fresh approach, we have the expertise and support you need to create a clear, actionable plan that will drive the long-term success of your association.

Our Approach

Our approach to strategic planning is a far cry from asking the Board starting the strategic planning paper with a blank sheet of paper, markers, and a pile of ideas. Instead, it's about empowering informed decisions, ensuring the strategy is built on a foundation of broad stakeholder input. Here's what sets our process apart:

• Stakeholder-Driven Draft: We create a draft “strawman” strategy crafted from comprehensive consultations, providing the Board with a starting draft that embodies diverse perspectives.
• Informed Decisions: With rich insights at their fingertips, the Board can refine and enhance the strategy, ensuring it aligns with the association's broader vision.
• Reflecting the Collective Voice: This process guarantees that the final strategy isn’t just a document—it’s a harmonised representation of the association's community aspirations.

With our approach, the Board isn’t left to navigate in the dark. They're equipped with a stakeholder-informed 'Strawman' to guide their path.

Developing the Strawman: Consultation and Collaboration is Key!

As a facilitator, our role is to ensure the creation of a clear and actionable strategy that paints a vivid picture of your association's future. Whether we're assessing an existing plan or starting from scratch, we're all about collaboration and real-world results. Our process includes:

• Project Kick-Off: An initial Zoom meeting sets the stage for planning the logistics of the process, ensuring all pertinent elements are factored in from the get-go.
• Stakeholder Consultation: We take a deep dive into your association's aspirations and challenges. This step can include a broad spectrum of consultation methods such as staff and stakeholder workshops, interviews, surveys and/or focus groups are employed to garner diverse insights that build a picture of where the association should be heading.
• Context & Aspirations: A presentation to your Board and staff on current trends followed by a collaborative discussion on your association's directional aspirations.
• Draft Strategy Creation: Using the insights gleaned from the consultation process, a draft strategy is created to use as a basis for refinement.
• Strategy Draft Refinement Workshops: Engaging workshops are conducted via Zoom with relevant stakeholders to feed into the draft “strawman”. This collective input developed a robust draft strategy that resonates with all vested parties.
• Facilitating the Strategic Planning Day: A dedicated session with your Board and relevant stakeholders is arranged to finalise the 'strategy on a page', encapsulating the core strategic objectives and operational action plans.
• Post Session Support and Wrap-Up: Post the strategic planning workshop, we run a workshop to discuss the next steps to ensure you have a clear pathway towards successful execution.

Every facet of this process is meticulously designed to be collaborative, insightful, and result-driven, ensuring that the evolved strategy is a precise fit for your association, ready to steer towards a future brimming with potential and meaningful impact.

The Output: Your Strategy-On-A-Page

Our objective is to distil the essence of your association's goals and aspirations into a concise yet comprehensive strategy-on-a-page. This will act as a reference point, guiding your association's journey towards its envisioned future. Your strategy-on-a-page will include:

• Strategic Direction: At the helm of the strategy, we'll encapsulate the overarching strategic approach in a succinct paragraph. This provides a snapshot of the chosen path for the association.
• Organisational Identity: This foundational section delves into the core of the association. While its phrasing might evolve, its essence remains constant. This includes your:

* Vision: Your association's ambition. It answers, "What do we aspire to become?"

* Purpose: The raison d'être of the association. It elucidates, "Why do we exist and for whom?"

* Timeframe: Defines the horizon of the plan, setting the pace for achieving the goals.

• Strategic Priorities: This segment outlines the key areas of impact for the association during the plan's duration. For each priority, we'll list actionable strategies that pave the way towards realising the respective priority.
• Operational Priorities: To ensure the strategic goals are not just lofty aspirations but realities, this section focuses on the operational shifts necessary. Beneath each operational priority, we'll detail the steps to ensure alignment with the strategic objectives. Think of these as the nuts and bolts that hold the strategy together, ensuring it's actionable and achievable.

With this strategy-on-a-page, your association will have a clear, actionable, and focused blueprint, guiding its steps towards a successful future. Your strategy won't just be a document—it'll be a dynamic tool that guides, inspires, and drives your association forward.