For those who feel drawn to the world of facilitation, but have not yet entered, it is important that you understand the difference between process and content

Have you heard some of these around your NPO Board, or from your Trustees:

“We don’t need a strategic plan, we need an action plan!”

“These action plans are too narrow, we need a big-picture, long-term view of things!”

“We spend too much time planning and not enough time...

Including multiple voices... Developing a strategy for a non profit is VERY tricky!

Are you an NPO Board or Trust newbie? If so, you may be wondering exactly what you have signed up for!

If so, unfortunately this post will not answer that question – that one is for another day altogether. But rather it is to answer a sub-question: what role do Board Me...

Prioritizing goals in a strategic plan is much like prioritizing anything else: figure out what’s most important and do that. Simple. Not so?

Yes and no.

The yes bit is easy: focus on what’s important. It’s the no bit that’s complicated: figuring out what’s most importan...

I have worked with 3 schools in the last 6 years to develop their strategic plans – and in two of them we included students (from Grade 1 through to 12!). And I must confess, the 2 that included the student voice were better plans.

Why?

Firstly, including students in the...

In South Africa, March 2018 saw the election of new School Governing Bodies for all public schools. It is the 3rd largest election in the country in terms of the number of eligible voters! And as we approach the end of the first term of the academic year, a number of n...

It’s easy to come up with an extensive list of strategies when it comes to creating a strategic plan for a school or any organization. But like most “big picture” activities, this can be rather overwhelming. And we often end up with having too many things that we want...

Got a big idea but not sure where to start? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. When faced with a big, hairy, audacious goal, the path ahead is seldom clear, or even easy! And it’s because of this that most of us get bogged down in uncertainty and overwhelm, which is why I’...

One of Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is “Planning with the end in mind”. Long Range Planning is a way of doing exactly that: ensuring that you achieve your end goal by planning from that endpoint

to discover your starting point.

Planning backward...