Our strategic plan…Um, what now?

What use is our strategic plan now when things are so chaotic? Not long ago, we were on a call with a leadership team wrapping up strategic planning. Together, we had just built a collaborative strategy rooted in their founding purpose, and along the way, they had significantly improved dynamics across the team and board. But our meeting was in March 2025 and they were facing Federal funding freezes and deep cuts to multiple programs. Naturally, their concern was whether they should lean into their recently revised strategy after all.

We took an anxious, collective breath. But it is exactly for times like these that we have a strategic plan. Those weren’t my words, but those of the operations and finance lead.

And there it is. We don’t make strategy for when times are easy, we make strategy to stay on track when times are hard. Perhaps especially when external conditions force us to slow down and make adjustments in how we move. Perhaps, for example, when a regime is exercising questionable authority, taking reckless action, and facing active but strangely limited push back. Strategic plans frame and guide those adjustments to align with our mission, values, and essential approach so that we may continue building from our particular assets and positioning. Having a collectively-built leading strategy doesn’t mean that we don’t adapt, it means that we can.

Over the last few months, that same management team has adapted and mobilized with clear messaging and quick action. They are ramping up fundraising, communications, and advocacy. They are calmly carrying on, rooted in shared values and strategic priorities. They are responding to current conditions while not getting pulled too far off course toward their North Star. I’m sure it is not easy. They still have some hard decisions to make. And tough actions yet to take.

So, what could or should strategy look like for social change nonprofits in a time like this? Is it possible to be responsive but not reactive? To engage the tension without indulging the drama (adrienne maree brown)?

For some of our colleagues strategy for right now is looking like an externally-forced urgent turnaround situation. For others, it’s looking like a pressing effort to rethink, retrench, revamp, reprioritize, reconfigure, and recommit. And for a few I suppose (but I’d have to be convinced), strategy right now may be about carrying on, all systems normal.

If you (or your board, your team, your collaborating partners) are seeking experienced thought partnership with practical hands-on peer support as you adapt to this moment, schedule a call.