surprise: strategic planning can actually be fun

So the whole entire point of my last trip to NYC was to participate in Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy‘s strategic planning retreat as a member of the Board of Advisors, which I joined in January. Mouthful.

I was pretty apprehensive about the experience, simply because a) like, 85% of strategic plans simply get placed on a shelf, b) spending two days talking about issues within the organization didn’t sound like the most fun way to spend my time, and c) I’m still trying to figure out what my contribution can be to the organization and I’m not quite sure where I fit in- especially given that I left my foundation job in December and have been questioning whether or not I can return to work in the field.

However, I knew that I liked the other participants, really admired our consultant, and was interested to see where we’d end up after two whole days of visioning for the organization’s future. We truly had our work cut out for us. Luckily, we had a great space at the Idealist.org offices, which apparently exist. I kind of thought Idealist.org ran itself out there on the internet, but no- they actually have a staff of people doing the work. And a gorgeous conference room- not pictured.

As a relatively action-oriented person, I was dismayed when we were immediately informed that strategic planning only begets more planning- and that we were not going to come up with any answers. I prefer answers, tasks and action and don’t necessarily love process, so it was going to be tough. We were asked to embrace and lean into the discomfort that goes along with addressing the issues and challenges that we face as an organization, rather than shy away from it- which I’d already planned to do because if there is one thing I’ve learned in the last five years, there’s absolutely no sense in waiting around for people to arrive at the right decision- especially if they’re making a series of wrong ones along the way.

Anywhoodle, I just wanted to say that in the end, I really appreciated the process we went through and although it was really tough sometimes and I hated hated hated some of the exercises that we had to slog through, I was kind of astounded and proud of our work when we arrived at the end of the long two days. We had worked from the abstract (thinking about factors that are working for and against us in the sector and how they affect the three parts of our mission) to addressing the challenges of having a staff of three (or two, in a month) and factored in our communications, board leadership and development, and the entire structure of the organization- all through of series of interesting exercises that kept us moving and engaged for the duration of the time.

All this is to say, strategic planning can be and is quite daunting, but it can also be fun. Just look where we celebrated once it was all over!  The Frying Pan on the Hudson River. More on this later.