Use this model to list and categorize all the people who could and should be involved in your nonprofit’s strategic planning. Try to be all-inclusive in this first analysis; you don’t have to invite everyone to participate, but you should think as comprehensively as you can about whom you should involve.

• Veto: These are players who can cancel a planning project, either directly through specific authority or indirectly by, e.g., firing the project sponsor. Their buy-in must be secured early and maintained often. At a minimum, this usually includes the executive committee/officers of the board.
• Discuss: Whose input is key to the project’s success? Who must be included for political reasons? An important funder could be in this group. While most nonprofits will automatically include the entire board in this group, take just a moment to think: Does every member need or want to be included? How much strategic thinking value (or lack thereof!) do individual board members bring?
• Inform: Who must be kept informed so they are not blindsided? Who needs to know about the planning progress, in order to prepare for their role in the planning itself?
• Implement: Who will be carrying out the initiatives in the strategic plan? They should almost certainly be involved in some of the discussion, because early involvement leads to buy-in, a strong predictor of successful strategic execution.

Exercise

1. List people in the Veto category.
2. List people in the Discuss category.
3. List people in the Inform category.
4. List people in the Implement category.

Reflection Questions

1. What patterns do you see in the lists you made?
2. What surprises you about the lists you made?
3. What organizational capacity and development opportunities and challenges are coming up for you right now?
4. How can the strategic planning process you design best serve people in each of the four groups?
5. How would strategic planning be a personally meaningful win for people in those groups?