KLee

There are some common traps foundations and nonprofit organizations fall into in doing strategic planning. These traps can derail the best of intentions for achieving community impact. They especially hinder advancing equity and justice for communities that are historically disadvantaged and excluded. Here is a quick guide you can use to help identify them. Over the next several weeks, we'll be posting about how to address them. Successful strategies can,

This series covers how to shape your foundation's strategy for more transformational impact by prioritizing equity and justice. That strategy can show up in strategic planning (whether it's a weekend retreat or 9-month facilitated process), continuous strategy refinement, or development of programs and initiatives. So far, I've covered seven strategy traps that limit philanthropy's impact, why a better approach is necessary, the approach's five principles, and a deeper dive on…

Most foundations (and nonprofit organizations) undergo some form of strategic planning. It makes sense: a good strategy should specify those priorities that provide the best odds of achieving success. This offers clarity around hard decisions and where to allocate attention and resources. The problem: Common strategic planning methods fall prey to seven strategy traps described in my last post. Most strategy development suffers from two challenges, skipping over "why" (i.e.,…