Create a Strategic Roadmap by Listening
How do you know if the services that your organization provides align with the needs and preferences of the community you serve? It’s an important question. Is your organization listening to and responding to the expressed needs of those you seek to serve, or is your team simply guessing? Setting up a good listening process with constituents is a vital aspect of program development. What methods can be used to ensure that your organization is community-informed? Surveys, focus groups, and/or informal conversations with constituents are effective, but the bigger question is to decide what to do with all of that data. Listening alone is not sufficient.
So how do we use data effectively? This is where strategic planning comes in. Gathering data and using it to inform decision-making at the board level strengthens ties with the community, leads to the creation of relevant programs, and helps create equitable and inclusive processes. The board can take a leadership role in this process- perhaps by establisig a committee to collect, review, analyze, and interpret the data, or by hosting periodic listening sessions to create dialgue and generate discussion about community needs. Or better yet - recruiting community members to the board to create a more balanced and inclusive governing body.
Regardless of the form this assessment takes, the themes that emerge from the process need to inform strategy. Some questions to consider:
What is the need in the community that our organization is dedicated to addressing, and how is it changing?
What demographic trends are occurring in the community and does the organization need to grow in light of these trends?
What assumptions are we making about the effectiveness of our work? How are we measuring impact?
What procedures can we implement to ensure that our community engagement and response efforts are ongoing rather than sporadic?
Some additional articles on becoming a “listening organization”:
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-to-hold-a-listening-session-in-your-community/
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/community-voice-expertise
https://www.fsg.org/blog/how-a-new-foundation-utilized-community-voice-in-their-strategy-formation/
We love conducting listening sessions and often partner with nonprofits to facilitate them as an objective third party. Let us know if this is something you are interested in! Click “schedule a free consultation” above!