Strategic Planning & Vision Development
This module focuses on shaping short- and long-term organizational objectives and opportunities that are mission-aligned and support sustainability. Participants will explore how to balance immediate priorities with long-term planning, and ensure strategic decisions strengthen core programs and operational growth. The session will introduce tools for setting strategic priorities and identifying growth opportunities that align with each organization’s mission and capacity.
DATE
Friday, December 12, 2025
TIME
10:00 am - 11:30 am CST
VENUE
PRESENTERS
Managing Director at Envoy
Salomon Moreno-Rosa
Salomon is a Managing Director at Envoy. He uses his background and expertise in nonprofit administration and policy development to inform nonprofit operations, philanthropy, and strategic planning engagements that help drive organizational goals and advance local outcomes.
Alejandra Piers-Torres
Manager at Envoy
Alejandra is a Manager of Strategy & Philanthropy at Envoy. She brings experience in local government, public/private partnerships, and program development to support social impact initiatives. Alejandra holds a BA in International Relations and Hispanic Studies from Brown University.
Rothschild Toussaint
Associate at Envoy
Rothschild is an Associate in the Strategy & Philanthropy sector at Envoy. He brings experience in economic development, affordable housing, research, and policy analysis. He employs a mixed methods research and data-driven approach to tackling social challenges. He holds a BA in Economic Geography from Dartmouth College.
Strategic Planning Lifecycle​
Foundation​
• This set of tools provides practical guidance on reevaluating Mission, Vision, and Values to help organizations achieve desired results.
This toolkit provides an essential overview for an organization to define Mission, Vision, and Values for a broader strategic vision plan. This helps your organization achieve desired results and identify goals that need to be accomplished. Having a strategic plan can help an organization focus on moving mission and vision forward while also helping evaluate progress, strengths, and needs.
This guide provides on how the mission of an organization articulates the purpose of the organization and defines the work that it will do to fulfill this purpose.
Strategic Planning​
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• This set of tools provides practical guidance on conducting strategic planning. A Strategic Planning Process identifies strategies so that a nonprofit will achieve its mission.
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• These tools provide an overview on measurable goals, approve priorities for implementation, and how to revisiting strategies on an ongoing basis as the organization’s internal and external environments change.
Session Agenda
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Welcome & Ice Breaker​
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Review of Last Module​
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Module 2: Strategic Planning & Vision Development​
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Guest Speaker​: Aarati Kasturirangan
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Breakout / Discussion​
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Closing and Next Steps​
This toolkit is for teams planning to develop or refine their strategic plan, and who want to ensure this planning is grounded in the strategy they’ve set forth in their intended impact and theory of change. This toolkit will share Bridgespan’s high-level perspective on what effective strategic planning takes and key considerations for teams navigating the different stages of this process.
The purpose of this training manual is to provide learners with the fundamentals of building a successful strategic plan for operating a nonprofit support organization. This manual presents information for preparing a strategic plan for people with varying levels of experience in strategic planning.
SMART is a framework for goal setting where each letter stands for a specific criterion: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This approach helps create clear, actionable, and trackable objectives by defining what needs to be done, how success will be measured, if the goal is realistic, its importance, and a deadline for completion.
SMARTIE goals are a framework for goal setting that expands on the original SMART goals by adding "Inclusive" and "Equitable" components to make them: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Inclusive, and Equitable. This method ensures goals are not only well-defined and attainable, but also actively work to address disparities and involve diverse perspectives in their development and execution.
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic planning model that evolved into an integrated strategic management system, linking long-term strategy to short-term operations. This model can be implemented in nonprofit organizations to achieve results by guiding decision-making and improving operational capacity.
Independent Sector recommends a nine-step Checklist for Accountability to help charitable organizations strengthen transparency and governance and uphold public trust. Key steps include developing a culture of accountability, adopting codes of ethics and conflict of interest policies, ensuring financial literacy on the board, and conducting independent financial reviews.
The VCA Strategic Planning Workbook serves as a seven-phase guide for organizations to create or audit a strategic plan, which is essential for defining the organization's direction, aligning stakeholders, and presenting a compelling future to funders. The comprehensive process starts with defining mission and vision, moves through gathering external and internal data, and culminates in building consensus to craft a plan with outward-focused goals and strategies.
This guide for conducting a SWOT analysis with a team to identify both internal factors (Strengths and Weaknesses) and external factors (Opportunities and Threats) influencing an organization's performance. The document presents specific questions to help explore areas for change and growth. This analysis is a core tool intended to assist with effective goal setting and strategic planning.
The IC Nonprofit Organization SWOT Analysis template offers a framework for strategic planning by analyzing a nonprofit's internal and external factors to identify its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The example provided illustrates internal strengths such as directly helping target communities and maintaining open communication, contrasted with weaknesses like insufficient community meeting frequency and unclear internal action item assignments.
This Excel sheet functions as a comprehensive toolkit and record for executing a multi-year strategic planning process. It includes guides and summary sheets for internal data collection, such as stakeholder interview questions covering vision, operations, and finance, as well as templates for mission/vision review and internal document analysis.
Examples of Organizational Strategic Plans​
The Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) Basics manual from CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA) is a resource designed to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian, peacebuilding, and development organizations working internationally. It combines rigorous analysis with practical field-level work, providing lessons and tools for both field staff and policymakers on how to design and evaluate programs in conflict-affected environments.
This folder contains actual nonprofit strategic plans and shows how to build your own with. It explains what nonprofit strategic planning is, why it matters, and best practices—especially involving stakeholders throughout to help you create a focused multi-year plan. It links to related templates and resources to finalize your mission, vision, values, priorities, and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
Session Materials
The Priority Focus Area Matrix is a strategic planning tool that maps an organization's high-level Priorities (e.g., Expertise & Impact, People & Culture) against its key operational Focus Areas (e.g., Engagements, Communications, Operations). This matrix defines specific, actionable strategies within each intersection, such as "Define and pursue areas of unique contribution" or "Develop creative activities... to support trust and relationship-building."
The Internal Review Checklist is a planning document that outlines the necessary internal and external documentation required for a comprehensive strategic assessment of an organization. It systematically categorizes information into five key areas: Organizational Overview (including mission, vision, and bylaws), Financial Information (budgets, audits, and donor lists), Program and Service Information (goals, community data, and service maps), External Environment (market landscape and trends), and Evaluation & Assessments (impact reports and key performance metrics).