Your strategic plan

A strategic plan sets out how your organisation will move from the present position to the one it aspires to reach by the end of the identified period - usually three to five years. The format of your plan will depend on your organisation's needs and who you are communicating the plan to.

There is no hard and fast rule about what a strategic plan should look like or what it should contain. It should be as long or as short, as detailed or as light-touch, as it needs to be. But most strategic plans usually contain:

• A clear statement of the organisation's vision and mission and the specific changes or outcomes it wants to deliver.
• A summary of its performance so far and reasons for this.
• An analysis of potential opportunities and challenges in the future.
• Priorities and aims for the coming years.
• Plans for how the whole organisation will change to deliver these priorities.
• An outline of how the organisation will track the progress of this strategy, including milestones and indicators of success.

Your plan doesn’t necessarily have to be all written down in one document. It could work just as well as a collection of short summary documents with a few illustrative diagrams, for example. And you might want to consider a range of formats for different audiences, from posters and fliers, to presentations and one-to-one conversations.

Consider your audiences

You will probably want to choose different ways to present your plan to your various audiences. This will enable you to match the right format with the right level of detail and emphasis, for each audience's needs. Remember to ask yourself how you want each audience to use the information you give them. And crucially, don’t forget your internal audiences – every member of staff and volunteer.

Types of plan

Here are five different suggestions of what a strategic plan could look like:

Story: A plan that tells a powerful and convincing narrative about where your organisation has come from and provides an exciting vision for the future.

Roadmap: A technical plan that gives your organisation a route to a destination, highlighting landmarks you will pass, potential hazards you may encounter on the way and resources you'll need.

Logbook: A framework that sets out what your organisation wants to be and how it will act, but gives the space for the organisation to record and capture the pattern of strategic choices it makes in the coming years.

Flyer: A short snappy plan that is designed to promote your organisation's successes and future intent to an external audience.

Library: Not so much a single plan in itself, as a store that pulls together plans, budgets and information about the organisation's environment for staff to draw on.

You might also want to consider more creative ways of communicating your plan. For instance, some organisations have found events, posters, visual diagrams and even 3D models of their strategy effective.

The traditional approach

If you find it helpful to have a written plan in a single document, consider including the following elements:

• A clear statement of the organisation's vision and mission and the specific changes or impact it wants to deliver
• A summary of its performance so far and reasons for this
• An analysis of potential opportunities and challenges in the future
• Priorities and aims for the coming years
• Plans for how the whole organisation will change to deliver these priorities
• An outline of how the organisation will track the progress of this strategy, including milestones and indicators of success.

Learn more about how to make the most of the strategic planning process.

Implementing the plan

Once you have agreed your organisation’s strategic priorities, you can start to assemble them into your overarching strategic plan, featuring your key decisions, actions, and a timetable. This can then be broken down into operational plans and work programmes across the organisation.

To enable you to implement your new approach, you’ll need to make sure that you communicate your strategy to all staff and volunteers so that they understand and support it and can play their part in making your plans happen.

As well as communicating what the strategic plan says, you may want to help those implementing the strategy to be more strategic in their own work and to develop their ability to monitor and evaluate their area’s progress.

Live your strategy

Sometimes, strategic planning can feel like preparing for a big journey without ever being sure when to set off. Acting in line with your new strategy from day one can help everyone across the organisation to adopt it. For example, if collaboration is a high priority in your new strategy, senior staff and trustees could kick the strategy off by encouraging more cross-team working or setting up exploratory meetings with potential partners.

Managing change

Your new strategy is likely to require a range of changes across the organisation, as you shift direction or prioritise different areas. To bring this new approach about, you’ll need to actively manage these changes. Find out more about change management.

Reviewing the plan

To keep track of the success of your strategy, you need to decide how to monitor and evaluate it. And you need to address this question as soon as your strategic priorities are decided.

Dealing with change

Monitoring and evaluating your strategy’s progress will also help you to assess whether it needs to change. This is an important question to explore because, as time goes on, circumstances will change and new opportunities and threats may emerge.

What to monitor and evaluate

Different elements of your strategy can be tracked and assessed, including:

• The strategy development process itself: did you meet your planned timescales, generate new ideas, engage and involve the right people in the right way?
• Communicating your strategy: do the right people know about your strategy and understand it, and are the formats you used effective?
• The implementation of the strategy across your organisation: have staff been able to develop effective work plans from the strategy and are you on track to deliver the results you want for your users or cause?