Dear Friend of NEW,

How is your board doing?  How do members view their roles and the strengths of the organization?  Take advantage of NEW’s freshly-minted Board360™ assessment tool to gain insight.  NEW analyzes results of a 30-minute online survey taken by each board member and produces a report that spells out high, medium and low priority action items and an action plan.  This affordable tool will give a much better picture of how your board is doing in the areas of board operations, strategic planning, resource development, oversight, and ambassadorship.

See a sample report online.  Contact us for more information.  You'll be on your way toward a high-functioning board!

In this Issue

• Lead Story: Implementing your Strategic Plan
   
• Events and Notices
   
• Upcoming Trainings
   

Implementing Your Strategic Plan: Action Planning
By Rosemary Bayer and Lee Gorman

At the beginning of the year and this series, we talked about the importance of strategy, understanding your mission and vision, and looking at strategic goals and priorities.  Perhaps you’ve been through the strategic planning process, reached consensus, and have documented those things.  Whew!  Congratulations all around!  Now you’re done with strategic planning for another few years, right?

Wrong!  Now comes the most important part: implementation.  And the most successful implementations are based on solid action planning.  Today we’re going to talk about how to develop good action plans to implement your strategic plan, and the importance of establishing a process to keep them current.

Take another look at those strategic goals and priorities, homing in on the priorities.  We’re going to focus on those things that you want to accomplish within the next year or two.  But where do you start?  Those priorities are still pretty broad, and don’t tell you exactly what you need to do or when you’ll be done.  But they give you great direction. 

The trick is to develop a list of discrete actions which, if completed, will lead you to achieve your goals.  Every action on your list should have responsibility assigned, timing, and some sort of metric.  Then, you should have a tracking system so you know whether you’re making progress, and can make mid-course corrections as needed.  Let’s take these elements one at a time, using for an example the priority goal of ‘enhancing our after-school program for low-income children.’

Read entire article. 

Small Nonprofits Take Heed!  All Nonprofits Must File with the IRS!

In the past, 501(c)(3) organizations earning less than $25,000 a year were not required to file with the Internal Revenue Service. That changed in 2006 and small organizations that have not filed for the past three years are in danger of losing their tax-exempt status. The Internal Revenue Service is providing a one-time relief program for small nonprofits and extending the deadline for filing to October 15, 2010.  Check to make sure your organization is not on this list. The online e-postcard or 990N is easy to submit.  More information.

Michigan Nonprofit Compensation and Benefit Survey 2010

The Michigan Nonprofit Association is offering free downloads to MNA members of it’s new version of the “salary survey.”  Non-members may purchase it for $35 in electronic format. Comparative information is available  for 19 nonprofit positions including: executive director, administrative assistant, human resource director and grant writer.  Information on employee benefits, too, can help set reasonable compensation levels. Find it on the MNA website.

Events and Notices

2010 Future Forum & Annual Meeting 
Michigan Chamber of Commerce
Tuesday, September 14, 1pm-8:30pm
MSU Kellogg Center, East Lansing, MI

Intriguing speakers, fresh ideas, varied perspectives, valuable information and networking opportunities.  Mike Huckabee will be the keynote dinner speaker.
More information and registration.

Capacity Building for the Arts - Detroit
Recognizing the challenges facing arts organizations in Detroit, The DeVos Institute of Arts Management, The Kresge Foundation, and The Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan have partnered on a new initiative designed to serve the city’s vital arts community. The two-year program  begins in late September 2010 and will include six symposia, periodic web-chats and tailored consultative services.
 
Application deadline Friday, August 27.  More information and application.

 Save these dates!
Fall into Service
Thursday, October 21, 5-9pm
The Arts League of Michigan, Virgil Carr Arts Center, Detroit
The matching event of the year! People interested in board service will do lightning round meetings with nonprofits looking for new board members. Individuals will be able to register online soon. Organizations wishing to participate must contact Yodit Mesfin Johnson (yodit at new.org; 734-998-0160 x 238). There will be a selection process, as space is limited to 20 groups.

Nonprofit Capacity Building Conference
Thursday, October 14, 9am--3pm
Eastern Michigan University Student center, Ypsilanti
With the theme "increasing the sustainability and reinventing nonprofit organizations," this gathering will focus on small to mid-size organizations.  More information.

Discrete Actions
You already know a lot about your goal, or you wouldn’t have included it. So, list some of the actions you may have to take to make it happen. In our example, they may include things like:

• Conduct a survey of current clients/staff to identify best practices and areas for improvement in the program
• Develop a list of specific changes to be made to the program.
• Estimate the funding (and/or staffing) required.
• Identify the source of funds for the changes (and go raise them!).
• Educate stakeholders about changes.
• Implement Change 1, etc.

It will probably take a little practice to find a balance between actions that are too narrowly defined (e.g., list addresses of clientele to be surveyed) and those that are too broad (implement all changes). You should be specific enough that there isn’t broadly overlapping responsibility or timing, but not so specific that you’re micromanaging every aspect of the project.

Responsibility
Very often, actions will be carried out by a team of people. However, prime responsibility for the action must be assigned to an individual so that there is accountability. If an action will be handled by a department, then assign it to the head of the department. If it will be handled by a cross-functional team, there needs to be a team leader assigned. There should always be one person you can go to for a status report.

Timing
The completion date for any particular action will be based on a number of factors, and should be negotiated with the person who has responsibility. Arbitrarily assigned due dates are doomed to be ignored! Factors that should influence the timing include:

• What is feasible? Surveying the clientele requires time to develop the survey, send it out, get responses, follow-up with non-respondents, assess, and write the report. A due date in a week is unrealistic. Things to consider:
  • Level of effort
  • Dependencies (what must be done before the next task or action starts)
  • Staff and other resources (capacity and skills to get it done). This is where negotiation comes in as you work together to lay out the plan.
• What specific tools or artifacts are needed to successfully complete the plan? If you want to make the changes to the program before the start of the next school year (and you’ve determined that’s feasible), you need to have the survey complete in time to support the downstream tasks dependent on it.
• What is reasonable stretch timing for completion? You don’t want to set a date much later than what is feasible, or it suggests a problem with your priorities.

When you establish timing, set some interim checkpoints. If you allow six months to raise the funds for the enhancements, you’ll want to check monthly on progress. If you wait until the end and a task isn’t done, you’ll be scrambling to make a new plan!

Metrics
By their nature, goals and priorities are not measurable (enhancing a program is a general direction, not a specific objective). Actions, however, must be so specific that you'll know when you are finished!. Sometimes, it’s as simple as done/not done, yes/no. Other times, you might have a percentage increase, or specific dollars or numbers. Metrics will be very specific to what you’re trying to accomplish and should tell you very simply if you have succeeded in executing the task, project or program. Take care not to go metric crazy! Metrics can be destructive if not controllable by the people being measured against them, or if they don’t really tie to achievement of the goal. Make sure that the metrics you use inform you about what you need to know, and help motivate the team to succeed.

Tracking System
At this point, you have a list of actions with responsibility, timing, and a way to measure them. Now, you need a way to keep track. This is a simple variation of project management, and its purpose is to ensure progress toward your goals and give you timely feedback if you need to take corrective action.

Although there’s plenty of project management software available, it’s easy to create your own chart or spreadsheet to track your action plans. Key information you want to have may include:

• Goal/priority (for major projects, this may be the entire spreadsheet)
• Action item
• Responsibility
• Due date and next checkpoint
• Status

List in order of dependencies and due dates so you make sure you have what's needed to move on to each succeeding step.

Update your project status in the most efficient way for your organization. In some cases, a weekly or monthly e-mail update from the person responsible will be sufficient. In cases where the action affects several people or is likely to require help from several sources, it may be better to have occasional conversations about status. You probably already have regular staff or department meetings; just add a regular agenda item for action item status update. At any particular meeting, you can have an update on those items due for a checkpoint or approaching final due date.

As with metrics, it's possible to over-do tracking, to where it takes more time and expense than it’s worth. You’ll probably have to experiment to determine how much review is necessary to keep things on track and flowing smoothly, without becoming an undue burden.

Next month, we’ll share more specifics on implementing those operational improvement projects that got high scores in your July assessment.

See you next month!
Lee and Rosemary

Rosemary Bayer is Chief Inspiration Officer for ardentCause, L3C, a company dedicated to helping nonprofits increase capacity through operational performance improvement and the adroit use of technology. She has 25 years in the Information Technology industry, and excels at inspiring varied groups of people to pursue a common vision, as well as problem solving and inventing. Experienced in both for-profit and not-for-profit ventures, she was a founder of the non-profit Michigan Council of Women in Technology (now 650-plus members) and founder and president of the MCWT Foundation.

Lee Gorman,the founder of Barton Consulting Services, LLC, is an insightful, results-oriented executive with over 25 years of diverse experience in strategic planning, product planning, implementation and leadership. She has particular expertise in assisting organizations to understand and articulate their missions, visions, and values statements, and then to develop specific goals and strategic priorities. She has demonstrated this proficiency in health care, educational, automotive, and other for-profit and non-profit businesses.