Strategic Plan
Assignment Description
Through this assignment, you will have the opportunity to walk through the strategic planning process, on a smaller, more targeted scale than usual. Instead of developing a strategic plan for an entire organization, it is just for the implementation of a volunteer program.
Directions
- Find and choose a nonprofit organization (through online search or one with which you are familiar) that you believe could (or does) benefit from a volunteer program. If you choose an organization that already has a volunteer program, you should do this exercise to develop a plan to improve the program. If the organization does not have a current program, the exercise should be completed as if building a program from scratch.
- Follow the following four steps (from the Balanced Scorecard Institute) to develop a strategic plan for a proposed (or current) volunteer program.
- Assessment:
- Determine the needs of the organization with respect to volunteers (how many, what kind, how often, etc.)
- Determine what work will be done by volunteers
- Consider Internal and external needs of the organization
- Development:
- Establish three broad strategic goals for the volunteer program
- For each strategic goal, establish five SMART action steps
- Execution:
- Assign responsibility for each action step to a person/position/department.
- Develop a timeline for each action step (in months/weeks)
- Evaluation:
- Develop 1-2 outcome measures for each strategic goal (decide WHAT you will measure)
- Determine methods for tracking and reporting information (decide HOW you will measure)
- Assessment:
- Complete this exercise by entering your goals, action steps, etc. in the “Strategic Plan Template” document