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Strategic Planning in an Election Year: Why Your Board Needs a Roadmap, Not Just Good Intentions


I love Google Maps. One of the reasons it’s such a useful tool for me is that I can see when a road I’m planning to take is blocked with slow or stopped traffic. When that happens, I have a choice: I can sit in congestion and hope it clears, or I can look at alternate routes that still get me where I’m trying to go, just in a different way.


Nonprofits face the same challenge right now.


The “route” you thought you could take to achieve your goals - steady funding, predictable policy, stable community needs - is increasingly full of slow‑downs, detours, and surprises. When you don’t have a map, you end up reacting in the moment instead of navigating with intention.


In the current political and funding climate, I see organizations:

  • Chasing short‑term opportunities because they feel urgent

  • Bouncing from one crisis to the next in board meetings

  • Stretching staff thin without a clear sense of what really matters most


Over time, that shows up as mission drift, burnout, and a board that spends more time in the weeds than on true governance.



Research backs up what many of us see anecdotally.

Meta‑analysis across sectors has found that formal strategic planning has a positive, moderate, and significant impact on organizational performance, particularly on whether organizations actually achieve their goals. Other studies suggest that organizations with written plans grow faster and are more likely to secure funding than those without one.


In the nonprofit sector, strategic planning is linked to clearer priorities, better time management, improved role clarity, and more effective fundraising and impact reporting. In other words: planning isn’t just paperwork—it changes how you focus, decide, and lead.


A good strategic plan doesn’t fix every external challenge, and it doesn’t lock you into one rigid 3‑year path. Done well, it functions like that live map on your phone: a clear destination, a main route, and thought‑through alternatives you can use when conditions change.


Especially in an election year, a strong plan helps your board:

  • Stay focused on mission and long‑term outcomes, not just today’s fires

  • Make disciplined decisions about what to say “yes” and “no” to

  • Communicate a clear direction to staff, volunteers, and funders

  • Show that you have a thoughtful roadmap in an uncertain environment


Here’s the catch I see over and over again:

If your board isn’t clear about its governance role, your strategic plan will struggle. When roles, financial understanding, and decision‑making aren’t aligned, even the best plan ends up sitting on a shelf instead of guiding real decisions.


That’s why I don’t start with the plan. I start with the board.


Before any strategic planning retreat, I use a brief Board Engagement Health Assessment with each board member. It looks at how the board is actually engaging its governance responsibilities today across areas like:

  • Governance role clarity

  • Financial resilience and stewardship

  • Strategic direction and learning

  • Leader support and succession

  • People, culture, risk, equity, and community trust


The result is a simple snapshot of where the board is strong, where practice is inconsistent, and where there are gaps that will shape your ability to execute any plan you create.


From there, we can do two things:

  1. Strengthen the board’s engagement in the areas that will most impact your strategy.

  2. Design a planning process that reflects your real starting point, not a fantasy version of your organization.

Your strategic plan becomes more than a document. It becomes a shared roadmap your board is actually ready to use, with enough flexibility to adapt when your “usual route” gets blocked.


If your organization is considering strategic planning starting in August or September, this is the window to get that roadmap in place.


If this resonates:

  • Like this article and follow my page to see the next part of this series, where I’ll share the 9 board questions that make or break your strategic plan.

  • If you want to explore a strategic planning process for August or September, you can schedule a brief consultation with me here.


Further reading

If you’d like to dig into some of the research behind the value of strategic planning, here are a few accessible resources and studies:

 
 
 

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