An essential element for any organization, whether brand new or starting over, is a focused and concise strategy.

The problem is that most organizations and their consultants don’t have the foggiest idea what a real  strategy is. In the absence of a true strategy it’s almost certain that the status quo will be perpetuated.

In a post titled Beware Of The ‘S’ Word! I unloaded on those who use the term ‘strategy’ without the slightest idea what it means.

• “Just look at the titles the agencies put behind the names of folks with one, sometimes even two or three years of experience: ‘Director, Strategy’ … ‘Chief Strategist’ … or just plain ‘Strategist’. Heaven save us all.

• “I am so offended each time I see a proposal where a consultant is claiming ‘strategic’ insight but all he/she is delivering are production budgets and schedules along with some incremental testing recommendations that lead to nowhere. Orange vs. blue envelopes is not ‘strategic’.

• “Not only do I get upset with the garden-variety poseurs, but I go absolutely ballistic knowing that this shameful lightweight advice is camouflaged under the name ‘Strategy’.”

In short the reason for my anger over this lack of understanding is that it deprives the nonprofit of life-saving innovation and dramatic change that may represent a significant breakthrough for its future.

Let’s start with what ‘strategy’ IS and what it is NOT.

• ‘Strategy’ is NOT asking three different copywriters to draft three versions of a renewal series.

• Strategy IS undertaking an organization-wide review of how donors are treated.

• ‘Strategy’ is NOT offering a client 100 PowerPoint slides at yet another quarterly or monthly review session.

• Strategy IS suggesting to the client that the contract should be re-negotiated so the consultant is paid on, let’s say, an increase in lifetime value or retention rates. [See Agitator’s Thinking Lifetime Value.]

• ‘Strategy’ is NOT producing reams and reams of meaningless data and analysis with no actionable outcome.

• Strategy IS identifying weaknesses or opportunities and recommending changes that will not only piss off the client but, most importantly, make them think. And change.

Based on five years of research and close observation involving hundreds of organizations, Kevin Schulman, CEO of DonorVoice and I identified the key differences between no or low-growth organizations and organizations that post substantial growth.

[The mindsets, methods and metrics that distinguish one from the other are detailed in Overcoming Barriers to Growth that appeared in PhilanthropyNYU, the Journal of the George H. Heyman, Jr. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University.]

Here’s a summary of our take and recommendations on ‘Strategy’.

For those nonprofits unlikely to ever grow, ‘strategy’ is often thought of as a spreadsheet exercise. Somehow the larger the spreadsheet the more confident the organization is in its ‘strategy’.

QUESTION: Have you ever wondered why front-line staff and managers — those responsible for executing ‘strategy’ — tend to dread the annual ‘strategic planning’ ritual? Why does it consume so much time and have so little impact on organizational actions?

ANSWER: Those responsible for delivering on the plan know from experience that this sort of process doesn’t produce positive change and growth. Instead, it almost always perpetuates the status quo.

Of course, if the alternatives are massive brain storming sessions or off-site retreats to come up with ‘radical’, ‘great new ideas’, you’re probably best sticking with the spreadsheet process. Better that than waste a day or two of talk with no meaningful follow-up action.

So, what is the alternative? What does strategy look like if an organization is truly seeking growth?

For starters:

• Strategy is about forcing a choice, stating what the organization is and is not doing.

• It is about making assumptions and explicit choices and outlining both — BRIEFLY — in 1 page, 2 maximum.

• If your strategy document is more than 2 pages then there is 99.9% likelihood it isn’t a strategy at all. It is a planning and forecasting and prognosticating exercise to deliver short-term comfort. It is also almost certainly a document that looks remarkably similar to last year’s.

• A strategy is clear, concise and focused. Just like good copy.

• Strategy is about making small bets with the explicit choices made — and not made — and the associated assumptions spelled out.

• With a solid articulation of the 2 (or 3 at most) choices available to solve a problem (e.g., falling retention rates, lousy uptake with the monthly giving offer) or achieve a goal, and equally solid articulation of the assumptions that must be true for either choice to work, you increase your chances of success.

• Evaluate those assumptions and determine which set best fits with what you do well, is most likely to be true, and then make a choice. This will greatly increase chances of success.

• Increasing your chance of success is not the same as reducing risk.

• It is about turning left or right and not believing you can do both at the same time.

• It is about monitoring performance of the small bet and then modifying your course or abandoning it all together.

• Contrary to popular belief, strategy is not about first failing a whole lot. That is called failing.

Here are two quick tests to determine if you truly have a strategy aimed at growth:

• If there is no risk, there is no strategy.

• If you feel comfortable, there is no a strategy.

What’s your strategy?

Roger

1.  Here’s a handy matrix in which I’ve summarized the differences in how slow/no-growth organizations think about ‘strategy’ compared with growth organizations.