You Don’t Need a Traditional Consultant

Does strategic planning require an outside facilitator? At Greater NY’s annual conversation on Boards, 25 nonprofit and private sector leaders agreed that while an outside perspective is helpful, it doesn’t need to come in the form of a traditional consultant.

“You can piece together outside perspective, it doesn’t need to come from just one person.”

Outside perspective can align stakeholders in an organization’s mission and get everyone moving in the same direction. Or they can frame issues in a new way. The group agreed this perspective can come in many forms: Taking a page from the academic playbook, a committee of peers can assess and offer recommendations, a development consultant can see an organization’s path from a purely fundraising perspective, or a new chief of staff or chief operating officer will ask questions that haven’t been asked before. “You can piece together outside perspective, it doesn’t need to come from just one person.”

“A facilitator helps staff and Board
see outside the bubble.”

Good strategic plans can be done internally, but the room agreed there are two cautions: 1) “It’s not the highest and best use of the ED’s time to drive the process,” and 2) “Unless the Board is an equal participant, there’s a real risk the staff moves too far ahead of the Board and the Board ends up disengaged.” Greater NY Board members and nonprofit leaders agreed that the CEO needs to be the “North Star,” keeping Board and staff aligned.

One issue that was raised carefully was the difference between the private sector and the nonprofit sector in assessing the ability of the leader or leadership team to take an organization into its next strategic phase. “It’s a question that doesn’t get asked and is a place where we all need more perspective,” said a long-time nonprofit Board member. “As trustees we don’t want our EDs to leave. But running an organization takes so much out of an individual, people get burned out. Most nonprofits don’t have a practice of asking explicitly, ‘Do we have the right people in place for the strategic next phase?’”

“As trustees we don’t want our EDs to leave, but running an organization takes so much out of an individual, people get burned out.”

More lessons and advice from our conversation on Boards, staff and strategic planning can be found in these recaps:

When to Do a Strategic Plan (and When Not to)

Your Strategic Plan as Swiss Army Knife

Greater NY holds meetings on key management issues
with its nonprofit and corporate partners