Created: July 24, 2013 at 8:53 AM | Updated: February 21, 2023 | By Community Resource Kit
Strategic planning involves defining what you want your group to achieve and making decisions on the best way to get it done. Your strategic plan should answer these three questions:
- What do we do?
- Who do we do it for?
- How do we excel?
Once you decide to set up a new group, get together to write your strategic plan. Do it in two or three brainstorming sessions so you have time to pause and reflect on your progress. Your strategic planning process should cover the following:
Tip: If possible, get an experienced, impartial person to facilitate the planning sessions. This will help identify issues that people within the group might miss. Also make sure you record the sessions on paper, a whiteboard or computer for future reference.
An established group should review plans on a regular basis. Start with your group's mission statement and objectives. These should be set out in your constitution and possibly in previous strategic plans. If your mission statement and objectives have changed since you wrote them, there should be a formal process for updating outlined within your constitution.
A mission statement answers the question: Why do we exist?
Your group's vision focuses on the long-term goal and a vision statement answers the question: What do we want to achieve?
For example, the mission of Volunteering New Zealand is: To promote, support and advocate for volunteering.
The vision of Volunteering New Zealand is: A New Zealand that promotes, values and supports effective volunteering for the benefit of individuals and communities.
A situational analysis identifies what's happening in the wider community, and what trends or developments might influence the direction and goals of your organisation. This is also referred to as an environmental scan.
Look at a wide range of issues, such as transport and housing developments, population trends (migration, ethnicity changes, changing demographics etc.) and employment trends (both local and national).
Some sources of information for carrying out your environmental scan are:
Your situational analysis will reveal lots of information, so analyse it as it you go. Try to filter out the information that isn't relevant to your group's goals and keep what is relevant. That will help you develop strategies that fit your community.
A PESTLE analysis is a specific example of a situational analysis in which you consider the:
factors that might affect your organisation, but which are outside your control.
To do a PESTLE analysis:
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is a tool for identifying the factors that will affect your organisation, both internal (which you can influence) and external (which you can't).
To do a SWOT analysis:
The PEST analysis will provide you with information about the external factors the Opportunities and Threats.
The Strengths will be the skills, attributes or resources of your group that will help you attain your goal, and the Weaknesses are the factors that might hinder you (these are things you can work to improve).
Internal factors (things about |
Strengths |
Weaknesses |
External factors (things outside of |
Opportunities |
Threats |
A stakeholder is someone who has a direct interest in the services your organisation provides. A stakeholder can be a client, a volunteer in your organisation, or another organisation that uses your services.
A stakeholder analysis lists the people or organisations that could have an effect on your group and identifies the nature of their impact. You can use this information when developing your strategic plan, because it allows you to determine the different needs and expectations of your stakeholders. It's also vital to your Communications Plan.
To do a stakeholder analysis:
Stakeholders |
Role/ relationship |
Influences |
Inter-relationships |
Strategies/ |
Community Groups: 1. 2. etc. |
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Clients/community |
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Funders |
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Neighbours |
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etc. |
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(Adapted from Toolkit for Managers, Public Health)
In a force field analysis you put your key stakeholders on the force field according to whether they support, oppose or are neutral about what you're doing.
Develop strategies to build your support and manage your opposition by:
Record these strategies in the last column of the stakeholder analysis map.
Read more about the definition, key usage and steps in conducting a force field analysis in this guide.
When you have completed your strategic planning, you should be able to draw up a final strategic plan for your group. It should consist of goals and a roadmap for achieving those goals. Try to keep it short by choosing 3-5 key priority areas that you will follow up with realistic actions. When you have finished, give everyone in your group a copy or put it up somewhere where everyone can see it. You've a much better chance of reaching your goals if all the members of your group are clear about what the goals are and what you need to do to achieve them.
To see some examples of community organisations' strategic plans, visit:
Next page: Operational planning