Strengthening Organizations That Serve Communities
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| Frequently Asked Questions about Our Services |
| STRATEGIC THINKING AND PLANNING FAQs |
Q: Our staff and board members already have packed schedules and very little extra time. How can you work with us insure the precious time we do have is used well?A: Our aim is to design strategic planning around your organization’s schedule. To the extent possible, we aim to integrate our work into already-planned meetings, to increase the chance of maximum attendance and participation. We also make ourselves available during evenings and weekends, and we can often arrange conference calls, e-mailing and other web-based meeting tools. And if your organization has any major upcoming activities, just let us know when they are, and we’ll work around them. We do everything we can to accommodate everybody’s tight schedule.Q: How will you help us consider our financial picture?A: As part of our environmental scan, we review your organization’s finances for the past seven years (of available number of years up to 7), as well as track important financial trends in the nonprofit sector. And if your organization needs to raise future funds in order to achieve its goals, we can advise you on who to go to and how to get there.Q: Will our strategic plan include measurable goals and objectives?A: Yes. Our work is always results-oriented. Our plans are all about management and performance. We help you figure out what you’re going to need to achieve your goals. And we will work closely with your Board members, staff members and stakeholders. When we work with Boards of Directors, we get them to talk about the Strategic Plan, how it impacts governance, and how the Board can use it to provide guidance and oversight.Q: What types of organizations are a good fit for your approach and experience?A: We work best with socially responsible organizations where there is agreement from the beginning that strategic planning is important and where the Executive Director or CEO is committed to using the plan on-going as a management too. Our typical clients come from the industries of children, youth and family services and community and economic development. We also have a growing practice with philanthropies and social justice policy advocacy organizations.Q: What is the typical cost of a strategic plan?A: Basic strategic planning services run between $12,000 and $15,000, not including a comprehensive environmental scan. Strategic planning with an environmental scan can run in the $15,000 to $25,000 range. Our comprehensive package includes a strategic plan, an action plan and budget projections. For organizations that cannot afford this, we also offer strategic visioning services for starting at $5,000.Q: What have some of your clients accomplished as a result of using Managance Consulting for strategic thinking or planning?A: Everything from creating new positions to restructuring their organizations. Many have increased their funding sources and have also achieved greater community visibility. In their own unique ways, they have helped their organizations to grow and get stronger. For more information visit our client success stories.Q: When it comes to strategic thinking and planning, what lessons have you learned over the years?A: For a strategic plan process and the resulting plan to be successful, there has to be agreement that this is the right time for it. There also has to be a tremendous amount of buy-in from Board members and/or stakeholders. That’s why we place so much emphasis not just on creating the plans, but also in making sure our clients are ready for them. We help everyone to figure out what’s best for the organization’s future.Q: Can we complete a strategic plan in three months?A: We wish we could tell you “yes,” but honestly, RESPONSIVE, BOLD, QUALITY strategic planning takes time. That’s because there are usually many people who are engaged in the process, and we want to make sure that all key members of your organization are given the time and the buy-in they deserve during the process. Comprehensive plans usually take an average of 5-6 months from start to finish. If your organization has a large number of board members, or if they are spread out and live in different cities, the plan could take longer. Of course, we will advise you on the estimated length of time it would take for us to come up with a plan for your organization.Q: How do we develop a scope of work with you?A: Our preferred approach is to meet with your Board and staff to help us understand what they are looking for when it comes to working with a consulting firm. In many cases, our clients already have Strategic Planning Committees comprised of several key Board members. We would facilitate a meeting with Committee members, and with their input, we would start designing the planning process. Then, based on our estimates, we would set up a fee and finalize the agreement.Q: Our organization already has a Board of Directors that can deal with strategic planning. What are the advantages of hiring an outside firm to help us with this?A: Strategic planning is both a vital and a time-consuming process. And it often creates a considerable amount of tension, even among people who have worked together for years. At Managance Consulting, we have very strong facilitation skills. We have the ability to take many divergent viewpoints into consideration, and to manage tension effectively. We help our clients to understand the “Big Picture of their organization.” We get them to challenge assumptions and consider issues that they might have otherwise glossed over. And we are constantly developing our practice to ensure that our clients find the process engaging and worthwhile.Q: I see that you are headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland. Does my organization have to be around that area in order to work with Managance Consulting?A: No. We are proud to say that we have clients all over the United States. As long as we can reach you by plane or train, we have a budget for reasonable travel, and we can communicate effectively with you, we are happy to travel to work with your organization. |
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| BUSINESS PLANNING FAQs |
Q: What’s the difference between business planning and strategic planning?A: Simply put, strategic planning determines where an organization is going in the long run, how it's going to get there and how it'll know if it got there or not. The focus of a strategic plan is usually on the entire organization, while the focus of a business plan is usually on a particular product, service or program. Business plans assume that the organization’s mission and vision for the future is relatively clear and focus instead on the market for a specific service, what exactly the service entails, financing/funding options, and implementation steps or decisions.Q: Why would our organization engage in business planning?A: Business planning can help a particular product, service or program grow, change and adapt. If there is a new area of work for your organization or if an existing area needs to change, business planning can help. It can define business processes, in other words, who does what when. It can look at new models or approaches and it can layout the steps for growth and expansion. Business plans present the financial picture, including feasibility, of an initiative. Business plans for nonprofits can also help identify the strategy or approach funding for specific services.Q: How long does business planning take?A: We wish we could give you an easy answer to this, but it depends a great deal on the scope of the business planning–will it include research on new models? Does it need to include operational plans and processes for a new service? Is it an existing service or a new service? Is staff already in place? Answers to all of these questions impact the length of time required for business planning. In general, business planning can take anywhere from a month to 6 months.Q: How much does business planning cost?A: This is highly dependent on the actual scope of your business planning. However, the core elements of business planning including market analysis, service definition, financing, and implementation steps typically costs between $7,5000 and $15,000.Q: Is the board of directors usually engaged in business planning?The board of directors may or may not be engaged heavily in the business planning process. Since the business plan is focused on a specific service and not on the organization as a whole, the full board may not need to be engaged. In the case of an all volunteer or grass-roots organization, the board may actually be doing the business planning. We often recommend engaging specific board members or committees to ensure there is a clear understanding of the business plan and its relationship to the organization as a whole. Further, if the target service is the principle activity of the organization, then the board may want to be more involved. |
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| LEADERSHIP TRANSITION PLANNING FAQs |
Q: Our executive director just left. How can you help us?A: Managance Consulting focuses primarily on the planning and visioning that organizations need to do to prepare for a transition or to get ready for the search for a new executive. While the common response to an executive director leaving is posting an position announcement in the newspaper, we encourage our clients to be patient. The first step is taking a deep breath. The next step is considering what kind of leader the organization needs to be successful in the future. commit to spending a little while getting ready to find the perfect candidate. We partner with TransitionGuides (www.transitionguides.com) to provide a full range of transition support services including helping you find a qualified, interim executive director, providing search services, and supporting the new executive once s/he is hired.Q: Why should I worry about the departure of our executive?A: Did you know that 65% of executive directors of nonprofit organizations nationally plan to leave their position by 2009? As baby-boomers begin retiring or moving from nonprofit jobs to other positions to build up their retirement income, nonprofits are likely to face an acute leadership shortage. Further, research on organizations going through transitions shows transition is a vulnerable time and can result in lost revenue, staff and board members. Our experience is that with proper preparation and planning, organizations can turn this risk into an opportunity for organization development and growth.Q: What is your track record of successful transitions?A: Managance Consulting has helped manage more than a dozen transitions since 2001. Our measures of success include clarifying the leadership needs of the organization, developing capacity building priorities during the transition, and supporting the Transition Committee and staff in preparing to successfully launch a new executive director. We have been successful in all of these areas in all the transitions we have worked on to date. In 95% of the transitions, the executive director who was hired has been with the organization more than a year.Q: How long does transition planning take?A: Leadership transition planning is focused on identifying the vision for the future direction of the organization so that an appropriate leader can be hired. This visioning process can usually be done within 1 to 2 months and usually requires an initial meeting with the transition committee and a retreat with the full board of directors.Q: Won’t our new executive want to be involved in planning for the future of the organization?A: Yes! Leadership transition planning is NOT strategic planning. The focus of leadership planning is identifying the leadership needs of an organization in the context of the vision for the organization. It does not lay out the complete strategic direction, goals and objectives for the organization. Leadership planning often identifies the need for comprehensive strategic planning once the new executive is on-board.Q: What is succession planning?A: It is planning in advance for a leader transition to help minimize the risk during transitions, and it supports organizational sustainability. We take a strategic approach that assesses the anticipated leadership needs of the organization and builds the competencies and skills of potential staff and board in a timely and deliberate fashion. In this way, the overall leadership of the organization is strengthened, and when a transition occurs staff and board members are prepared to step up to more effectively manage it.Q: How can we do succession planning when we have a small staff and we don’t have the resources to have a second in charge?A: Managance Consulting has experience with 3 different types of succession planning – emergency succession planning, leadership development planning and departure-defined planning. In emergency succession planning the focus is on developing organization policies and procedures to be followed in the event of the planned or unplanned departure of an executive. This type of succession planning does not rely on identifying and grooming successors from within the organization. Instead, it promotes shared leadership among staff and board members by identifying the critical tasks that will need to be managed in the event of the departure of the executive and assigning staff and board members to manage those tasks. It may also include a training plan to ensure other staff is prepared to take on these specific tasks. Leadership development succession planning is often combined with strategic visioning or strategic planning. This focuses on identifying the leadership needs to support the strategic direction of an organization and support staff and board leadership in developing these competencies. Departure defined succession planning commences when an executive begins thinking about leaving and begins to explore alternative scenarios.Q: Is there a difference between executive leadership transitions and board leadership transitions?A: Yes, the planning for them is different, but the need to be prepared for them is the same. The biggest differences are that 1) board leaders are volunteers who are appointed for specific terms, 2) boards are intended to be self-perpetuating and therefore, are responsible for cultivating their own leadership, and 3) consistency in board leadership is essential for good governance and the stability of the organization in an executive leadership transition. This means that boards need to make leadership develop an on-going part of board member recruitment, officer nominations, and Committee Chair appointments. |
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| RESULTS MEASUREMENT PLANNING FAQs |
Q: What is the end product of results measurement planning? What do we get when you leave?A: This is in part dependent on the scope of work that we develop with you. Typically, a results measurement plan will lay out goals (programmatic and administrative), indicators which measure success of each of these goals, and a description of how you will collect these indicators over time. We may also provide the actual data collection tools as attachments to this plan.Generally your indicators will be numbers that describe 1) what happened, 2) feedback on what happened, 3) what the initial accomplishments were and 4) what difference will this accomplishment make over time. For example, what happened can include the number of people attending, number of trees planted, or the number of new houses. Initial accomplishments may be the number of people who were exposed to new information or completed budgets necessary for purchasing a home, or that trees planted improved the look of the street or shaded the stream. What difference it made could that because people have a budget they saved x amount of money toward the down payment on a home or because trees shaded stream, the stream temperature dropped and new fish were able to survive. We always work to ensure your plan has a manageable number of indicators and we seek to use existing data collection or existing procedures that could yield data as opposed to adding new activities. Q: Is this program evaluation?A: Yes and No. Many people are uneasy about the word evaluation. It conjures up images of an outsider coming to tell you how you are doing and those outsiders often find things lacking. Results measurement planning the “managance way” is driven and controlled by you and is intended to provide management with an on going source of information so that you know how well your strategies are working. Results measurement takes the best elements of evaluation thinking and brings them into the organization’s culture and management processes.Q: Our staff and board members already have packed schedules. How do you make sure that we can manage on-going data collection?A: We always ask how you already collect data and how you work with clients or participants in your services. By better understanding how your organization operates, we can suggest ways of systemically recording data without adding significant new requirements. Of course, to be effective the management and staff of the organization will have to make some shifts to systemically record information, review the data, and consider how to respond to any findings.Q: How have your clients used the results measures?A: Our clients use their results measures to report to their boards, their funders and their supporters about how they are doing. They use it to craft public education messages about what they do. They also use it to strengthen their approach to their work.Q: Do you help us develop the surveys and other data collection tools?A: Yes. We can develop valid, tested, simple data collection tools. We can also research existing data collection tools in your content area.Q: How much does it cost to develop a results measurement system?A: This varies with the size of the organization, number of programs and staff. We have designed simple systems for as little as $6,000 while more complex organizations may require twice that. |
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