Nonprofit boards are made up ideally of a diverse group of individuals who volunteer their expertise to help govern a charitable or nonprofit organization. The Governance Center of Excellence outlines a Board’s role as:
- Approving Goals & Strategic Direction
- Establishing a Framework for Performance Oversight
- Overseeing Program Effectiveness & Quality
- Overseeing Financial Conditions & Resources
- Overseeing Enterprise Risk Management
- Supervising Leadership
- Overseeing Stakeholder Relationships
- And Managing the Board’s Own Governance
While the role of a Board is consistent, consider that there are over 170,000 registered charities and nonprofits in Canada and the sector includes a diverse range of organizations such as:
- municipalities
- universities & colleges
- technical schools & job training programs
- hospitals
- nursing homes
- child‐care centres
- museums
- zoos or aquariums
- recreation or social clubs (e.g. your local soccer, curling or hockey club)
- social services organizations
- refugee assistance organizations
- business associations and/or unions
- research organizations
- environmental protection groups
- a diverse range of arts organizations
- media organizations like TV stations or newspapers
- grant-making foundations
- religious organizations and more…
A recent article in The Standford Social Innovation Review highlighted how in the face of pressing systemic inequities, Boards must now “change the traditional ways they have worked to prioritize an organizations purpose”. Some of the conversations the article sparked have highlighted how (especially new) board members lack the in-depth sector knowledge needed to adapt.
Marketing plans are built upon the foundation of a strong situational analysis that looks at the audiences and marketplace conditions. Sharing this information can greatly assist boards who are “involved with strategic work that requires a deep understanding of the work that the organization does and the community it seeks to serve.”
Situational Analysis
A situational analysis section of a marketing plan includes research and analysis of your target markets/audiences, competitors, business challenges, and why your organization is unique/differentiated. It should contain the clearest description of the current state of the marketplace. Since we know most internal documents can sit on shelves gathering dust, a marketing team often creates a one-page S.W.O.T to summarize their findings. The Strengths & Weakness internal analysis lets teams look critically at how they are performing, while Opportunities & Threats note the external situations teams can take advantage of or that could negatively impact the organization. Developing a S.W.O.T analysis ensures teams seek out different perspectives, look at the root causes / why things are happening and acquire factual data to support their decision making.
Teams that had strong plans found this foundation work essential in helping them create a set of crisis scenarios to guide pandemic response planning. And as we begin to develop new plans for post-pandemic opportunities, consider these key questions to ensure your organization has the sector knowledge it needs:
- What need are we addressing now? In the future? How is the need we are / will address changing? Who else out there is addressing this need and what do we offer that is different or better? Do we have a clear understanding of the resources (technical, human, financial) we need to meet these needs?
- How does the organization get the money/resources to fund its activities? Who are the organization’s donors, funders and key stakeholders? What do they expect? Are there external factors impacting our revenue streams (e.g. government funding, donor giving patterns, fundraising limitations, etc.)
- How do the activities and programs support the vision and mission? Did our actions produce the impact we intended? Are the measures we are tracking still relevant?
- What is happening outside the organization that could affect our ability to achieve the mission/vision What risks does our organization face?
While teams will hyper-focus on sub-sector data to inform their plans, one of our older posts also offered some helpful links to Canadian NFP Stats / Data sources and our team would be happy to connect to discuss our strategic marketing planning supports & services.