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by Jeanne Bell and Dan Tucker, Co-Founders
Image credit: Eye for Ebony on Unsplash
Blog No. 5 - September 2023
In all of the discourse about whether and how to do strategic planning, we often overlook a fundamental issue: how to craft strategies themselves. We suffer real consequences from this oversight–too often ending up with a list of strategies that don’t have the clarifying, galvanizing effect we need them to have organization-wide. As readers of this blog know, we believe that strategy is the central aligning force of a justice-committed organization. In that spirit, we offer below five keys to writing great strategy.
1. Know what you mean by “strategy.”
It stands to reason that you have to know what you are writing in order to write it well. So, you must choose a definition of strategy that works well for your organization; teach it to everyone; and stick with it. The definition we use is, “the approaches that define our work.” This short, powerful definition invites people into a discussion of how you create impact; how you achieve your organizational purpose; and, how your organization moves in the world. (See our April 2023 Blog for more on this definition and the practitioners who inspire it.)
2. Write to your staff.
The primary audience for strategy is your staff. Period. Not funders, not partners, not even board members. First and foremost strategies must inspire and instruct the people carrying out the work everyday. So, as you craft a strategy, think of particular people on your staff. Will staff who already embody the strategy see themselves in it? Will it resonate for them? On the other hand, will your staff who most need to learn what the strategy is asking of them understand it? Does the instruction come through loud and clear? Strategies are written to guide everybody’s work and everybody’s choices–from the project assistant to the executive director and everyone in between.
3. Focus on the verbs.
If strategies are the approaches that define your work, then verbs are especially critical. For each strategy, home in on what the approach looks like in action. Choose a verb that is evocative of what it feels like to experience the strategy–whether as the enactor or the beneficiary, or both. Again, the more specific the verb, the more inspiring and instructive to the staff charged with bringing it to life. For example:
Weaker: We host spaces for learning and personal growth.
Stronger: We encircle participants in beloved community.(i)
4. Enable discernment.
The core purpose of strategy is to enable aligned decision-making. Strategies should be written to guide people towards certain choices and away from others. So, in addition to focusing on evocative verbs, make sure the whole strategy sentence is supporting people to make the decisions you are empowering them to make in their day-to-day work. For example:
Weaker: We build partnerships to advance our movement.
Stronger: We invest our social, intellectual, and financial capital in networks that advance the just transition to a regenerative economy.(ii)
5. Craft your strategies as a set.
Finally, your strategies function as a set. As a set, they apply to all aspects of the organization's work. As a set, they act as a concise but well-rounded guide to aligned decision-making for everyone who works at the organization. When staff deeply understand your set of strategies, they are equipped to activate–through their own roles and teams–the approaches that define your organization’s contribution to social change.
We’d love to hear your comments and additions to this list. And, if you’d like to read our strategies at JustOrg Design, they are here.
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Footnotes
i. “Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism
ii. “Just Transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.”
