It’s in our nature to look toward the future in inspirational terms. No matter the size of your nonprofit, your work is driven by a central mission of doing good work and making a positive impact in your community or the larger world. Organizational leadership has a mandate to look toward the future, ensuring the sustainable longevity of doing good but sometimes it feels though that between mission and action things can fall apart.

This is why it is imperative for your organization to have clearly laid out plans on the direction you take and the goals you wish to accomplish. We’ve discussed how a SWOT analysis lays the foundation for proper planning. Today, we introduce Strategic and Tactical planning.

A strategic plan is a document used to communicate the organization’s long-term goals looking three to five years out, the actions (in big terms) that are needed to achieve those goals and other critical elements needed in support of the goals stated.

In planning terms, the inspirational viewpoint aligns with a strategic plan. It contains your dream (vision), the journey (strategy) and destination (goal). All of these are key elements to an organization’s success.

A tactical plan sets specific short-term actions and plans regarding the organization’s basic functioning for the next 12 to 18 months: board, committee, finances and programming and can be the key to making organizational progress with or without a strategic plan.

To think in terms of a tactical plan, the organizational leadership needs to think about the more practical elements such as the steps (purpose), acts (tactics), and results (objectives) bringing the ideal to real.

What does this look like?

Read a quick comparison of Strategic vs. Tactical planning here. 

urbanASKEW works closely to help nonprofit organizations develop both Tactical and Strategic plans. To learn more or to have a conversation with our staff, please contact us here.