Strategic Planning

Our philosophy is simple. Strategic plans are living documents that lay out courses of action that are monitored closely and revised with changing conditions. Underpinned by core principles that guide decision-making and bold but realistic visions, they include focused, integrated ways to realize desired results, including communications plans and financial plans for realigning or raising additional funds for implementation.

Our experience and research clearly indicate that nonprofit institutions that are successful in developing significant philanthropic support from multiple resources have demonstrated high quality performance resulting from a dynamic strategic planning process. Our goal is to provide strategic counsel to the administrative and content leaders at an institution; counsel that helps them to focus not merely on the development of the plan but also on the best ways to implement the plan.

While many institutions have developed overarching strategic or long range plans, the vast majority of these plans lack the integrated implementation plan that ensures success. A fully integrated strategic plan will provide a textured vision with clearly articulated core values, defined and measurable strategies, institutional unit goals, marketing strategies, and resource development plans. The plan will provide the institution's senior leadership team with a dynamic road map that identifies annual benchmarks and measurement criteria; it will facilitate the ability of leadership to see on a monthly or quarterly basis how the institution is doing; and it will shine a light on the existence of new opportunities.

The advantages of Marts & Lundy's approach to strategic planning are four-fold:

• Senior leadership will be able to keep an active finger on the institution's pulse through measurable goals and objectives
• Members of the administrative and academic community will be able to "own" their individual pieces of the plan
• The institution will have an increased "evidence and story pool" that will expand the institution's opportunities to communicate and spotlight its achievements and, therefore, create an even stronger brand signature
• The institution's close friends will become more engaged in the campus and, therefore, more inclined to partner with the institution in realizing the plan's goals

Marts & Lundy's strategic planning service is a fluid process accomplished through external facilitation, expert counsel and objectivity. For more information on how Marts & Lundy can assist you in facilitating your planning process, please call (800) 526-9005.