It’s the end of 2014 and year end tends to make you think of the future. Here’s how to create a plan for a great future.

It’s all about Strategy

I believe in order to run any successful enterprise it comes back to strategy. We always do a lot of strategic planning here at Taylor Studios, but this year we did more than usual. We’ve made plans and set goals that will make us a better firm and a better partner for you. Having a plan is one of the most important things a company can do.

I believe the same planning is critical to the success and longevity of each of the institutions within our industry as well. To run a successful nature center, museum, or similar organization, you must define success and have a plan to get there. This is your strategy. Today, I’m sharing with you 12 tools which will help refine your strategy and achieve your organization’s goals.

Mission and Core Values

“There is an old saying that good intentions don’t move mountains, bulldozers do. In nonprofit management, the mission and the plan – if that is there at all – are the good intentions. Strategies are the bulldozers. Strategies lead you to work for results. Planning is the intellectual exercise, but until it becomes actual work, you have done nothing.” – Peter Drucker

The first step is to have a mission. Don’t go with some lofty, vague, or wordy prose. Craft a mission that people can remember; one that is brief and passionate.  Harvard Business Review may not be the first place you would think a non-profit would look for guidance on crafting a mission, yet I highly recommend Googling their resources to help you. Here’s a good one. I think the McKinsey & Company article on measuring your nonprofit’s mission is a good resource as well.

Do the Strategic Planning

Do the intellectual work of looking at your future and planning for it today. I suggest you start with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). Do this year after year and see how you progress. Have someone familiar with strategic planning facilitate an all-day session with you to define your goals and strategies. You will probably generate more things to complete than you have resources to accomplish. Prioritize the most important action items to complete in the next year. Strategy is often more about what not to do than what to do. Ask yourself what you should stop doing. Go!

Lead the Plan

The role of the leader is to set the big picture vision and reinforce it constantly. You must define and communicate your approach. You must create connectivity with your team to implement the tasks. It is your job to provide the discipline to stay on strategy. You must voice this strategy and vision over and over again. Does your staff know the mission of the organization? Do they know the values? If not, you are not doing your job. Do they know the goals you have set for this year? Do they know which one is most important?

Turn Strategy into Action

Draft a schedule and a budget around all the action items that must be completed in the next year. Assign an owner to each task. Have that person write a Statement of Work on how they will complete the project in the next year. Follow up!!!

Do quarterly goal setting with each of your staff members to keep them on track to accomplishing the thematic goal. Make sure their goals align with the overall strategy. Have them report on what they accomplish each quarter.

Know Your Audience

Drucker says, “A business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation. The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence.” As a visitor-driven institution, your customer is your visitor. Do you know your customer well? Craft visitor personas to identify what makes your visitors tick. How would you define your audience’s demographics, goals, behaviors, and attitudes? Our industry is struggling to engage much of the diverse population. It is mostly middle to upper class Caucasian people that visit our institutions. How are you going to engage minorities or Millennials?

Do secondary research. Find other institutions that have done research that you can use at your site. One thing we’re seeing is how important the social experience is to visitors. Does your site enhance the social experience of its visitors? You can also implement visitor studies to gain further insight as to what drives your guests. Use a local university to help you if you don’t have the resources. Do observational studies of your own.

Once you know your visitor, then you can innovate new ways to engage them. Seth Godin recommends growing your following by starting with those that only have to make a slight shift to believe what you are selling. What does the future of visitation look like in engaging new and old audiences? How will digital fabrication, social media, the aging population, etc. change the way you engage visitors?

A Summary of Your Strategy To Do List:

1. Craft a Mission

2. Complete a SWOT Analysis

3. Complete an all-day strategic planning session

4. Craft a Vision

5. Draft a schedule and budget

6. Write a Statement of Work for each task

7. Do quarterly goal setting

8. Craft visitor personas

9. Do secondary research

10. Implement visitor studies

11. Do observational studies

12. Innovate new ways to engage your audience

Here are four tools you can use:

1. SWOT Template

2. Statement of Work Template

3. Quarterly Coaching

4. SMART Goals

Have fun creating your strategy. Believe it or not, our strategic planning meetings are a lot of fun. We laugh a ton while we envision and make plans for our future. It’s all about constant improvement and loving what we do.

Let me know how it goes. I would appreciate hearing whether or not you found these tools useful. If you have questions, I’d be happy to help, too. Cheers to 2015!