Methodology

The Board began the planning process in September 2006 with a four-hour retreat held in conjunction with the fall quarterly meeting. A planning team comprised of volunteers from the Board and the senior staff was created to guide the process. The process itself had three primary phases:

  • environmental assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
  • information gathering and analysis of strategic initiatives
  • recommendations

Throughout the process, approximately 50 meetings were held including Board meetings, planning team meetings, staff meetings, and meetings with external stakeholders. Reports and minutes of these meetings were shared broadly with both the Board and staff.

During phase one of the process, the planning team analyzed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). In addition, new vision, mission, and values statements were drafted, and organizational priorities were identified.

In phase two, input was sought from external stakeholders and staff. This information was integrated into the SWOT analysis and preliminary goals were established with corresponding strategies.

Phase three of the process involved refining the strategies and developing a comprehensive set of specific actions to support each strategy. These actions form the basis of an Implementation Plan that will be monitored by staff and the Board during the next three years.

A top priority throughout the process was to keep the Board and staff fully informed about progress on the plan and to solicit their ongoing input and feedback. The Board was briefed regularly at its quarterly meetings to ensure that each step of the process was codified before the planning team proceeded to the next level of analysis. Senior staff met several times to discuss the plan. In addition, general staff met on several occasions to receive updates and to offer input.

The next two sections of this report discuss the environmental assessment and analysis that comprised the first two phases of the strategic planning effort. The remainder of the report focuses on the recommended vision, goals, and strategies.