Changemaker Conversations: The Podcast for Nonprofit Leaders · Alyssa Conrardy and Lindsay Mullen

The Four Roles That Make—or Break—Your Strategic Planning Process

·36 min·3 clips

Alyssa reveals how strategic planning acts as a magnifying glass on your nonprofit's culture and hidden dynamics.

Alyssa Conradi and Lindsay Mullet, principals at Prosper Strategies, explain how to define roles for stakeholders in nonprofit strategic planning. They argue that correctly engaging staff, constituents, the board, and facilitators is critical for a plan's success. The hosts emphasize that a strategic plan sets the organization's multi-year direction and impacts everything it does. Staff should have primary ownership of the plan because they execute it daily and are closest to the constituents. Constituents—the people served—must provide ongoing input and ideas, not just a single survey at the start. The board's role is strategic insight and oversight, focusing on high-level elements like mission and pillars, not daily details. Facilitators guide the process, balancing stakeholder input without dictating the plan's content. A common misstep is failing to involve constituents throughout the entire planning cycle with multiple check-ins. Another is improper board involvement, which can mean either over-involvement in minutiae or under-involvement until a late, disruptive veto. Organizations can form a staff strategic planning committee that meets biweekly and a board committee that focuses on big-picture elements. Some may also create a constituent stakeholder committee for deeper engagement. Research combining qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, aided by AI to spot trends, helps prioritize feedback. The process surfaces organizational culture, acting as a microcosm of how groups work together. Strategic planning cannot fix a completely broken culture but can reveal areas for improvement. The tone is educational and conversational, blending practical advice with examples from the hosts' consulting experience. It is supportive and aimed at reducing friction in the planning process. Nonprofit CEOs, executive directors, and senior leaders navigating a strategic planning cycle would find this episode immediately useful. Listeners seeking a high-level theoretical discussion or quick fixes might find the detailed role breakdown too granular.

As heard by us

Strategic planning works better when constituent trust is built in, not bolted on.

The episode treats strategic planning as an ongoing exercise in trust, with Alyssa Conradi and Lindsay Mullet arguing that constituent engagement has to continue throughout the work, not just at the outset.

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Why you'd press play

You need a planning process that keeps constituents in the loop before, during, and after the plan is written.

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