Your organizational strategic plan shouldn’t be.
Your annual giving solicitation plan shouldn’t be.
Your major gifts officer metrics program shouldn’t be.
We shouldn’t create plans with the intent that they will change.
Instead, we should do the hard work up front to identify the most impactful priorities, discern the most appropriate and inspiring goals for those priorities, and then, create the best possible, most implementable strategies, tactics, and approaches to achieve those goals.
When someone says, “Our plan will be a living document,” or, “We’ll adjust our system as we go,” what I’ve often found is that they actually mean, “I’d rather not make the tough decisions about prioritizing our work.” Or, “it’s more fun to follow my creative energy from day-to-day than to be disciplined and stick to a plan.”
By the very nature of our work, development of mutually beneficial relationships with donors happens over long swaths of time and through the consistent application of thoughtful practices.
We must be flexible, of course.
But, first, we must earnestly plan and consistently implement.
