Strategy Plan

Introduction

A strategy plan is a formal statement of a set of goals, the reasons they are believed attainable, and the strategy for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organisation attempting to reach those goals.

Why

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This toolkit is useful when:

• You need to set goals and define the strategies to reach them.
• You want to understand your internal and external issues to maintain a successful organisation and grow.
• You need to generate a strategy plan to present your organisation and raise funds from outside resources.

What you can expect

This is a step by step guide in creating a strategy plan.

Step 1: Review

Review your current strategy:

• The problems and opportunities
• Vision and mission
• Theory of Change
• Your long term goals 

Watch this insightful ATMA webinar about strategy planning to get an idea of the whole process:

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Step 2: Gathering Facts

Gather information and facts required for the external and internal analyses:

• Use the PESTLE model for factor analysis (political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental analysis)
• Do a market analysis (beneficiaries/customers, competitors, new entrants, etc.)
• Review your internal key performance data, for example the amount of benecifiaries helped, the percentage of beneficiaries happy with your service etcetera (current vs planned)
• Once the external and internal analyses are completed, analyse the most important findings.
• Watch this short video from Efua Elens-Edeh about the value and use of an Strategic Plan, to be able to put it all together.

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Step 3: SWOT analysis

Use the findings to complete a SWOT analysis (internal Strengths, Weaknesses; external Opportunities and Threats) of your organisation looking at the following areas:

• Quality and Cost
• Programme Outcomes
• External Recognition
• Fundraising
• Talent and Partner Acquisition

Take enough time to do a solid SWOT analysis, as this lays the foundation for your strategies.

Step 4: Define goals & strategies

• Once completed, transfer the SWOT analysis into a matrix to generate strategies by asking how you can use your current strengths and overcome weaknesses to make full use of the opportunities and to mitigate threats.
• The main purpose is to generate only strategies that will take the organisation to your arrival point: your long term goal.
• For each strategy, define a performance metric and goal.

Step 5: Implementation plan

• Once the long term strategies are clear, the staff member responsible for each organisational area (e.g. Fundraising or HR Manager) creates an implementation plan defining activities and tasks for each strategy.
• Define the 4 W's for each organisation area: What? When? Whom? What resources?
• Ensure all activities are included.

Step 6: Financial analysis

• The budget, financial projections and financial analysis should be developed and included in your strategy plan.
• For more information about financial analysis, look at the toolkits under 'Finance', for example the toolkit on Financial Management.

Step 7: Follow up

• To ensure that the strategic plan is being implemented, plan regular follow-up meetings with the management.
• The main objective is to keep the plans’ objectives on track, and keeping the responsible staff members accountable for achieving results.

Step 8: Review

• After the follow-up meetings, you should continuously improve the plans and make adjustments to short term goals and related activities whenever required.
• The strategy plan should be a living document: the organisation should continuously refer to and work on it, revising if needed.

Key To Success

• Involve the leadership team and management of the organisation in every step.
• Make sure the person taking the ownership of the plan is identified already at the beginning of the process.
• For young, starting NGOs, a stronger market analysis, business model and financial analysis are required.

Challenges

• Most small and medium sized organisations do not have a strategy plan, or do not implement it.
• Formulating a solid strategy plan can take time and effort.