A Modern Nonprofit Podcast · The Charity CFO, LLC

Episode 128: Strategic Planning for Nonprofits: Why It’s Broken and How to Fix It

June 17, 2025·41 min·3 clips

Steve String reveals how strategic planning is really about solving problems to achieve your nonprofit's impact.

Host Tasha Anderson is joined by Steve String, the practice director for Spectrum Nonprofit Services, to demystify strategic planning for nonprofit organizations. They aim to clarify the often-vague buzzword and provide practical guidance for leaders. The conversation defines strategic planning as an umbrella term for problem-solving to achieve an organization's intended impact. They discuss the critical roles of both the board, which governs and approves direction, and senior leadership, which understands operational realities, in the planning process. A key recommendation is to involve a core task force of five to eight people, supplemented by larger information-gathering sessions with staff, to ensure practicality and buy-in. The hosts emphasize the importance of integrating external market factors and internal capacity limitations, including staff burnout and hiring challenges, into any strategic assessment. They argue that a plan must honestly address whether an organization can afford its desired impact given current financial and human resources. A surprising insight is that strategic planning is not only for growth but can focus on stabilization, right-sizing, or even closing programs to reallocate resources. String highlights a major red flag: if a program team cannot produce basic data on its effectiveness or finances, strategic decisions become nearly impossible. The episode challenges the common assumption that capacity issues are always solved by hiring more people, suggesting sometimes the problem is having the wrong person or lacking necessary systems. Finances are presented not as a separate concern but as integral to planning, with the budget telling the story of an organization's true priorities. The hosts advocate for shorter, adaptive strategic cycles of 12 to 18 months instead of rigid five-year plans, allowing for quarterly reviews and pivots based on changing circumstances. They suggest that even without a consultant, organizations can adopt this approach by designating a neutral point person, like a less-involved board member, to facilitate the process. The tone is conversational and experience-based, blending professional advice with personal anecdotes from the nonprofit sector. This episode is ideal for nonprofit executives, board members, and senior staff who feel overwhelmed by traditional strategic planning or are navigating uncertainty. Listeners seeking a rigid, textbook formula for long-term planning might find the adaptive, shorter-cycle approach less appealing.

As heard by us

Strategic planning is pulled out of slogan territory and into operational reality.

This conversation treats strategic planning less like a nonprofit slogan and more like the work of deciding what an organization can realistically carry.

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Why you'd press play

For nonprofit leaders tired of strategic plans that sound good on paper but run into real-world limits.

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