Strategic Planning: Where We Begin

Collective Impact-Based Strategic Planning for Organizations

In today’s interconnected world, addressing complex societal challenges requires more than isolated efforts from individual organizations. The collective impact approach emphasizes the power of collaboration, bringing together diverse stakeholders to work towards a common agenda, shared goals, and systemic change. This framework provides a structured method for aligning stakeholder efforts, optimizing operational areas, and setting clear strategic priorities to maximize impact. This is where Thicket Labs begins when tailoring our strategic planning process for our clients.

1. Stakeholder Groups

Identifying and engaging key stakeholders is foundational to the collective impact approach. Stakeholders typically include:

• Executive Leadership/Board of Directors: Provides governance and strategic oversight, ensuring alignment with the organization's mission and goals.

• Staff and Employees: Individuals responsible for implementing the organization's strategic plan, managing operations, and driving initiatives.

• Partners and Collaborators: External organizations, including nonprofits, businesses, government agencies, and academic institutions, that work together to achieve shared goals.

• Funders and Investors: Entities that provide financial resources and support, helping to sustain and scale collective impact efforts.

• Community Members/Beneficiaries: The individuals and communities directly impacted by the organization’s work, whose needs and perspectives inform strategic planning.

• External Consultants/Advisors: Experts brought in to provide specialized knowledge or skills, such as evaluation, facilitation, or strategic communication.

2. Operating Areas

These are the core functions necessary for the organization’s operations, reflecting areas where collective impact principles can be applied:

• Governance and Leadership: Establishing strong leadership to drive the collective impact approach, ensuring alignment with the mission and strategic goals.

• Backbone Support: Providing coordination, logistics, and ongoing management of collective impact initiatives, typically managed by the organization's staff or a dedicated team.

• Shared Measurement and Evaluation: Developing and implementing shared measurement systems across all initiatives to track progress, assess impact, and inform decision-making.

• Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Ensuring that the activities of all stakeholders are aligned and complement one another, driving towards shared objectives.

• Financial Management and Resource Allocation: Managing the organization’s financial resources, ensuring they are aligned with and support collective impact goals.

• Technology and Data Management: Leveraging technology to facilitate communication, data sharing, and analytics across all stakeholders.

• Stakeholder and Community Engagement: Engaging with key stakeholders and the community to maintain alignment, build trust, and ensure that initiatives are responsive to actual needs.

• Communications and Public Relations: Strategically managing the organization's messaging to promote transparency, highlight collective impact efforts, and engage external audiences.

• Partnership Development and Collaboration: Building and maintaining partnerships that enhance collective impact efforts, leveraging additional resources and expertise.

• Compliance and Risk Management: Ensuring that all activities comply with legal and regulatory requirements, and managing risks associated with collaborative efforts.

3. Strategic Planning Priorities

These priorities guide the organization’s long-term planning, ensuring that all activities are focused on achieving the desired collective impact:

• Developing a Common Agenda: Creating a unified vision and set of goals that all stakeholders agree on and work towards collectively.

• Establishing Shared Measurement Systems: Implementing metrics and indicators that are used across all initiatives to track progress toward shared goals and ensure accountability.

• Coordinating Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Aligning the activities of all stakeholders to ensure they support and reinforce each other, maximizing impact.

• Facilitating Continuous Communication: Maintaining open, transparent, and ongoing communication among all stakeholders to build trust, align efforts, and respond to challenges.

• Strengthening Backbone Support: Enhancing the capacity of the organization to coordinate and manage collective impact efforts effectively, including managing partnerships and supporting collaborative networks.

• Building and Maintaining Strategic Partnerships: Fostering collaboration with other organizations, sectors, and stakeholders to amplify impact and share resources.

• Promoting Equity and Inclusion: Embedding equity and inclusion in all strategic efforts, ensuring that the voices of marginalized groups are heard and addressed in decision-making processes.

• Sustaining Financial Health for Collective Impact: Ensuring the organization’s financial strategies support long-term sustainability and the success of collective impact initiatives.

• Leveraging Tools and Resources to Advance Collective Impact: Using specific tools, resources, or programs strategically to support and enhance collective impact efforts.

• Evaluating and Adapting Collective Impact Strategies: Regularly assessing the effectiveness of collective impact initiatives and making adjustments as needed to achieve the organization’s goals.

Summary of Relationships:

• Stakeholder Groups and Operating Areas: Stakeholders, including leadership, staff, partners, and community members, work together within defined operating areas to ensure that all activities are aligned with the organization's mission and collective impact goals.

• Operating Areas and Strategic Planning Priorities: Each operating area directly supports one or more strategic priorities, ensuring that the organization's efforts are coordinated, measured, and focused on achieving long-term impact.

• Strategic Planning Priorities and Stakeholder Engagement: The organization's strategic priorities are informed by and aligned with the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders, ensuring that collective impact efforts are responsive, inclusive, and effective.

This generalized framework can be adapted to fit the specific context and needs of any organization, allowing for flexibility while maintaining a focus on collective impact principles. It provides a structured approach to strategic planning that emphasizes collaboration, alignment, and the pursuit of systemic change.

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog post on collective impact-based strategic planning. We’ve drawn insights from various thought leaders and frameworks to present a comprehensive approach that can be adapted to any organization. For those interested in learning more about the principles of collective impact, we recommend exploring resources from the Collective Impact Forum, as well as foundational works by John Kania and Mark Kramer, who first articulated the collective impact framework in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Additionally, insights into stakeholder engagement and shared measurement practices can be found through resources provided by the Tamarack Institute. We hope this post provides valuable guidance as you explore collective impact strategies within your organization.

Thank you for being part of this important conversation!