Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9 Ways Cognitive Bias Undermines Social Change Efforts

This is going to be the first of many posts on how cognitive bias might undermine social change efforts. Yeah, I know. I will do my best to keep this concrete and interesting. A number of quirks in how our brains work might lead to mistaken judgments in many areas relevant to social change: problem analysis, strategy, program design, and advocacy. Maybe fundraising. Taking effective action on a certain problem is what activists want to do, so we'll come back to fundraising later. 1.Confirmation bias may cause us to look for reasons why a certain strategy or tactic is the right one. Supportive evidence gets woven into the narrative, lending support to the need for more education for women or more gun control or whatever the topic might be. Negative information gets tossed out. 2. Bandwagon effect -This may be a real problem when the resources devoted to addressing an issue get all of proportion to the seriousness of an issue. Instead, bandwagon jumping siphons away money and v...
Post a Comment
Read more

Using SWOT Analysis to Rev Up Your Fundraising

Strategic planning, including SWOT analysis, is for small nonprofits, giant philanthropic foundations, and every other nonprofit. Every nonprofit that seeks financial support of any kind needs a strategy.  The point is to make a plan and work the plan. Business gurus have shared a bunch of strategic planning tools, some generic and some made for a specific purpose. This post is about looking at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats - SWOT.  Knowing about your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is step one in planning your fundraising efforts.  SWOT - A Quick Review This is not the best place to run through SWOT analysis, but an overview will make it obvious why we need to do it. First, however, you should write down your fundraising goal. Then, you can do some analysis. Here are the steps: Strengths - What about your financial resources? What about your reputation and your connections? How big is your audience on social medi...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Powerful Tool for Nonprofit Planning 2

This is the time for another post on the social environment of nonprofit organizations. Yes, I know this is a bit esoteric and complex. I’m just going to break things down into a few (more) concrete) posts. Last time I mentioned that your organization’s environment has seven dimensions, each with three elements – capacity, rate of change, complexity. I know I mentioned strategy before, but consider also fundraising, social marketing, and advocacy strategy. To make it easier, here is the table I presented last time: CAPACITY COMPLEXITY DYNAMISM CULTURE ECOLOGY ? ECONOMIC ? DEMOGRAPHIC LEGAL POLITICAL ? TECHNOLOGICAL ? Because 7 X 3 = 21 there are at least that many questions you could ask about your organization’s environment. Last time I posed some generic strategy questions based on the above table. This time I just want to offer some more questions based on the seven dimensions and three elements. From the polit...
Post a Comment
Read more