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A Powerful Tool for Nonprofit Planning 1

Nonprofit strategy seemed like a good subject, given that times may be lean for nonprofits for a few years. Well, that was the impression I got from a Chronicle of Philanthropy newsletter. Last time I wrote about a guy named Edward De Bono and a few of the “thinking tools” he invented. This is another post in that series, and it will be a series.

One of the thinking tools is called Consider All Factors (CAF). The point with CAF is to examine various factors that are relevant to a decision. In this case, I want to focus on decisions about the strategic direction of your organization. Where do want the organization to go over the next few years?

If you want to examine factors that are relevant to your answer to that particular question, then CAF is a useful tool. “Doing a CAF” means to take a systematic look at various social or technological factors that might be relevant to your decision. A simple desire to focus on those factors for several minutes is all that’s needed.

When studying organization theories I learned about a model of the organizational environment that uses 21 elements. There are seven dimensions of the environment: cultural, demographic, ecological, economic, legal, political, and technological. Each of those dimensions has three elements – capacity, dynamism (or rate of change), and complexity. The combination of dimensions and elements leads to many possible questions.

A table might better illustrate how this model of the environment could be used as part of a CAF:

CAPACITY COMPLEXITY DYNAMISM
CULTURE
ECOLOGY
ECONOMIC
DEMOGRAPHIC
LEGAL
POLITICAL
TECHNOLOGICAL

Each cell of the table should suggest a question of two about your organization’s environment. I can supply a few questions to help out.

In the Cultural Capacity cell, you might ask this: Is interest in issues like _________ waxing or waning?

The Ecological Complexity cell suggests this question: How many organizations with similar service offerings or positions are competing for peoples’ attention?

The Legal Dynamism cell suggests this question: How much are laws, rules, and regulations relevant to this issue likely to change?

Yes, this was a brief overview of the environmental model. I’ll add more detail in my next post.

If you have used SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis then consider CAF an useful adjunct to the O and the T phases. In each phase you have a structure for thinking through the various types of opportunities and threats that relate to your organization.
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