Reflections on the first year of our strategic plan
By Meghan CampA common question we get from our strategic planning clients is how to ensure their plans will be flexible and adaptive in an unpredictable and rapidly changing environment. It is no surprise that this has come up a lot this year, as our sector—and every single one of our clients—has faced incomprehensible challenges, from monumental losses in funding, to increased polarization around organizational commitments to equity and inclusion, to political and public attacks on their staff and communities. In the face of these challenges, our clients have been forced to reexamine their business models and shift their approaches to fundraising. Without a crystal ball, many of our clients have reflected on whether even a three-year strategic plan can be nimble enough to navigate the uncertain future.
Having recently completed the first year of our own three-year strategic plan, Point b(e) Strategies has had similar reflections. At our annual retreat this summer, we asked ourselves if our strategies still made sense and if our plan was flexible enough to meet the escalating needs of our clients and the sector. Our answer to both of these questions was “Yes.”
This is largely because our strategic plan doesn’t live on a shelf. It’s a road map we review and update every quarter. And while we have three-year priorities and objectives, they serve to set our course and focus our energies rather than dictate our tactics. This approach allows us to be responsive to new challenges and opportunities while staying rooted in our values and broader vision for change. For instance, one of our strategic priorities is to engage in intentional and conscious disruption to ensure more inclusive and equitable spaces, systems, and practices. And while the types of projects we take on may look different from year to year based on the needs and trends of the sector, we remain committed to finding ways to disrupt inequitable systems and practices on small and large scales so that resources, wealth, and power are accessed and held equitably, and individuals and communities have what they need.
Over the past year, we did a lot of foundation building. This looked like:
Defining what it means to us to be equity-centered consultants
Establishing new policies and procedures to improve clarity and set our team up for success
Investing in staff well-being by rolling out new paid time off and leave options
Developing an organizational logic model and evaluation plan so we can better understand our impact
Continuing to articulate our unique value in the sector
Creating new opportunities for our sector partners to gather together and share their lessons and challenges, including our Gather & Galvanize event for organizational leaders
And while it’s been a difficult year, we truly believe it would have been exponentially more difficult without our strategic plan. These intentional investments in our organization ultimately bolstered us against numerous challenges and gave us the clarity and freedom to test and iterate new approaches while staying true to our unique strengths and mission.
Over the next year, we’ll be leaning further into our values of authenticity, integrity, equity, process, change, and partnership. We know that the coming years will bring more hardship and uncertainty to our sector, and these values will drive how we show up for our clients and partners—humble, curious, and eager to chart pathways toward change together.
We are so proud and honored to work with all of you—our partners in social change. We know that lately it feels like the distance between our point A's and point B's has only gotten greater, but every day we are inspired by the ways our clients show up for their communities, even when the path is murky. As we embark on our 10th year, we are ever grateful to play a role in this work with you.
