Traditional, static nonprofit strategic planning never made that much sense. The world does not stand still. Spending months with senior leadership to develop a “top-down” set of directives that are imposed on staff, have set deadlines, and do not shift was always a bad idea. Still, nonprofits did it, because most other nonprofits were doing it, and they were told that strategic planning would lead to more revenues and greater board engagement.

With what you’ve seen in the past few years, you know that traditional strategic planning has moved from “silly” to “toxic.” In a world where change is constant, you cannot afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars to create a static, unrealistic strategic plan that cannot adjust to your changing environment. Still, you need to choose important goals for your nonprofit and rally your staff, your board, and your stakeholders to support that vision.

That’s why we have developed Lean Strategic Planning. It builds on Ted Bilich’s successful book, Managing Your Nonprofit for Resilience (Wiley 2023), where he introduced the concept of building an early warning system for your nonprofit to see threats before they become crises and exploit opportunities before they pass on by. Lean Strategic Planning builds on that core insight to help your nonprofit couple critical strategic imperatives while monitoring issues that might affect those imperatives. That way, your strategic work blends seamlessly with your daily operations.

To learn more about Lean Strategic Planning, click here and get a free download explaining the Lean Strategic Planning advantage.