 Welcome everybody to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're so excited you're here. I'm really excited you're here to be with Emily Taylor. She's gonna talk to us about something that can be very controversial and why it is I don't know. And so this is what she's gonna help us with. And that is strategic planning pitfalls. And let's give you a little hint. It's like maybe you shouldn't just jump in, right? So we need to kind of talk about what this looks like. And Emily, the principle of teeny big is gonna help us today. And we are so excited that Emily, you could join us. We know that from our conversation, you're coming to us from Chicago. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I'm coming to you from the Southwest. Jared Ransom, believe it or not, the nonprofit nerd herself, she's conducting a strategic planning seminar today for a client. So I mean, this is just such an interesting confluence of what goes on. Things like that happen all the time at the nonprofit show. And we are so blessed to have these amazing sponsoring partners with us. Bloomerang, American nonprofit academy, nonprofit thought leaders, staff and boutique, your part time controller, 180 management group, fundraising academy at national university, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. If you've missed any of the 950 plus episodes, you can find us on our sexy new app. You can get a streaming broadcast or you can listen to us on podcast. Kevin Pace, our stellar producer, just informed me this morning before we went live that we just hit our 500th, say that fast three times, Emily, 500th podcast download. So it's really- Really a cool thing, excuse me, not download, but podcast being positioned up. We didn't start with podcasts. We've always been a broadcast and so this is kind of a cool thing. Okay, Emily Taylor, enough about us. You are in the hot seat, my friend. Coming to us from a snowy blustery day in Chicago, talk to us about Teenie Big and what your work is. So at Teenie Big, I focus on strategic listing and it's really to help organizations that are stuck in making decisions, stuck in moving forward to really hit that, keep going and moving forward on their growth trajectory instead of really just stalling out and losing sight of where they're going because they've sort of put on a lot of challenges. So I help organizations get clarity and a lot of that is through listening to their community. Wow. I gotta believe that you deal with a lot of frustration, folks that are like that wanna do well, they wanna do good and they wanna do well and good at the same time, but they get frustrated and they need kind of a help and a roadmap. Yeah, I like to call it a reset. And this, a lot of times comes from you know, nonprofit leaders and staff are so good at what they do, but often they can get themselves into a bit of a bubble. And so when, it happens to the best of us that really become expert at what we do, we can lose sight of what's around us. And so that's really where I love to help, is help get people out of that bubble but also do it strategically. We don't need too many cooks in the kitchen, but we need, sometimes need a reset to really understand our value and who we are as an organization. So I love that and I love the spirit of it and I've gotta be really candid with you. I don't hear that very often, right? I mean, it doesn't seem like that's an approach that is out there very often, sadly. I mean, it really should be. And I wanna start by asking you this very first question and that is, why take a step back from strategic planning? Is this like a don't do it or is it just like a 60 day thing or a year or what does this look like to you in the bubble of strategic planning? Yeah, so I'm really talking to those organizations that feel a little lost. COVID threw a lot of people for a spin. Organizations hired a ton of people. They got different sources of funding programs around them. Other partners they may have become different people. Funders, just the everyday people around them have become different. And so even though we're coming out of a pandemic, I think just really being able to stop and take a moment to say, hey, it's not just one thing that's different. There's like all sorts of things that are different. And so if we jump into a strategic plan right now, can we go through it in a really intentional way? So I really recommend to organizations that feel a little bit in turmoil, that feel like they might have lost a little bit of track of who they are, really take a step back because if you're not going in with at least a little bit of alignment, a little bit of idea of what that future might hold, you might not be able to really work cohesively and make those big decisions that you need to in a strategic plan. And I also will say that maybe a strategic plan isn't the right next step. If a lot of things in spin, there's a lot of different options of next steps. So I always have to be a strategic plan. Okay, so when you're talking, I love again the spirit with which you're looking at this and trying to be not so just task oriented, but really thoughtful and looking at things in a deeper way. Let me ask you a follow up question because I feel like there's one approach and one silo with the staff and the team, and then yet another one with the board. So often we see, and you've got to be at the front of this line, you see a board that comes up with a strategic plan that really cannot be enacted by the staff or the team. That there's, it hasn't come together holistically by everyone. So do you see this more so with the board versus the staff or do you see it going both directions? Well, again, we're talking about pre-strategic planning. So before really getting into those things, but yeah, if an organization has grown a lot over the last three years, there's staff that have worked there for 20 years and staff that have worked there for one year. They're not, they don't see the organization in the same way and same with the board. So really hoping people get aligned on who the organization really is and what it values and how it makes decisions can help unify people and set them up for success as they do go about making those decisions. And you'll see this in conflicts of staff feeling different ways about what the organization is and what it should be, boards bringing in their different ideas. And that's really where you get into this, I called decision making quicksand and sort of like you are, no one can really move forward, things get pushed off to the next meeting, but at the same time, you're not making them and you're slowly sinking into the consequences, the loss of time and money of impact that you might be facing by not making those decisions. Oh man, I love that description because I have been there, I see it. It's an awful feeling and yet you have the pressure of your community bearing down on you to solve a problem, to be doing the business of what you were formed to do, whatever that may be. It's a super tough thing. Let's talk about and have you explained to this something about the value of a pause. This is a really interesting thing because in the beginning of the pandemic, so many people were like, we're gonna pause, we're gonna pump the brakes. And now everybody's like, bad decision, move forward, get going. It just seems like everything's escalated and the pressure is bearing down on us. So how do we know what the value of a pause is and when to take it? Sure, so I think having some of those things, like not being able to talk about your organization in a similar way or everyone's talking about it differently, maybe not being fully staffed, maybe there's some big changes coming up like program changes or leadership changes. A lot of those things could create that turmoil. And the value of taking a pause is to give back that confidence in knowing who you are, how you sit in your community and how you make decisions. And not just the executive director knowing this, like really having a lot of the leadership be aligned as well as knowing that your community, where your community supports you, maybe where your actions are actually meeting their perception, your intentions are being perceived in the way that you think. So those are some of things. And it just reminds me of a client that I've been helping over the last year where they doubled their staff over the pandemic. They were doing some amazing work as they were getting grant funded for it. But they also took on a bunch of projects that maybe weren't always in their scope because the need was there. And so they felt a little lost in 2022, 2023. And so, and the other big thing was their executive director had been talking about retiring for 10 years. Luckily for them, he was still there, but it was the situation where they hadn't done a strategic plan in probably 20 years. They knew they needed to change, but they didn't really have this path forward. And so their number two actually reached out to me, which happens a lot because they could kind of see, right, we could see this bubble sometimes a little earlier. And so as we were talking about some of their layers of challenges, I just asked her, I'm like, well, what if he doesn't retire for another three years? And the look on her face said it all. I was just like, she hadn't even thought that that could happen, but it already had happened. He'd been talking about retiring forever. So she could see that decision quicksand of it maybe subconsciously, but by bringing that to the surface, it would just really started to put forth like, okay, we need to work on these steps. That's really your next step. And so we've been meeting over the last year and they actually just hired a search firm. So I'm really super excited for them and their future. So two questions come to mind. One of them, like sometimes you could say, a pause is like a long weekend, right? Or a pause is a fiscal year or a season. What are you seeing when it comes to actually embracing the concept of pausing this looming issue of strategic plan? Yeah, well, and I, so in this case, this example I gave, we worked together for about four months and then I helped support them ongoing throughout the year, but we really were able to like build that identity and decision-making, understanding it through the whole organization in the shorter time period, but it really takes this ongoing sticking with it, accountability to be able to really start implementing those changes. So in this case, the goals were to start working through some of their priorities versus doing a strategic plan. And they had a lot of those, I call them the chicken and egg challenges, doing a strategic plan and then hire an executive director. Do we hire an executive director in that strategic plan? Right. And so, and some of those things can really cause, be the cause of that decision-making quicksand because no one knows. And so it goes to the next meeting and at the next meeting. And so we just decided to work through their priorities versus do a strategic plan. And so that's really part of that step back is to not just pause and then go about what you were gonna do anyways, it's to really go and think of like, is this, what is the right next step? Is it doing a strategic plan ourselves? Is it hiring some of the amazing strategic planners that are out there that come in all different, scopes and sizes? Or is it something totally different where you really just need to test some things out, you need to hire new leadership, you need to do a reorg, like just doing what you need to do versus what you feel like you should do. Yeah, it seems to me like that you're talking about a lot of heavy lifting that can become quickly emotional and frightening because people are thinking about, who's gonna be here, who's not, the health of the organization. Does this mean that it's easier if you do have that outside voice that can bring truth to power? Or should it be more, is it something that a group can do on their own? I love that you brought that up because I do think, one, there is so much emotion and if we ignore that emotion, that's part of why people aren't moving forward. They're afraid to make that decision or they're not sure if they get canceled or there's something, like with an executive director leaving so much emotion there, both the staff not even be able to envision an organization without that leader, to the leader be like, I can't envision a life without leading this organization. Right, right. So part of it is to acknowledge the emotion and what I find is by listening to your community, again, it's not to get all the cooks in the kitchen and get some sort of consensus on what you should be doing, but by hearing from your community what, for instance, your magic is to hear stories about what they think you do best, it really helps align everybody and see past some of those fears, for instance, like being able to envision the organization without the current leader. When you hear from 15 different people in all different aspects of your community, they think your organization is XYZ, that's your organization, that's not the leader, and so you can start to envision how you move forward and what that future might be because it's not so intertwined. Okay, so when you're talking about this, what, and you're doing a review or an interview of your community, what is that looking like? What numbers are you saying, we've got to interview 100 people, 20 people, 1,000, what does that look like to you? My work is all customized by what the organization needs. So sometimes it's a mix, if we need to hear from a lot of people in the survey, if it's sort of similar groups of people, we can do focus groups, but need to hear from specific people, interviews can really get to some of those in deeper questions about why and those stories that you don't always get to hear in the other formats. But yeah, it's really about hearing from a range of people and looking for patterns that can, and translating them not into just like, here's a bunch of opinions, but into what can help you prioritize and make decisions for your organization. And not just get mixed up by all the voices. Right, so Emily, I've got to ask this question. When you do this, how often, when you give this information back to an organization, how often does it misalign or align with what they think is going on? I mean, I got to believe that in some cases, it's a tough thing to reveal, right? Maybe somebody, maybe a group doesn't have a great reputation or maybe the community thinks that they actually do something different than what they think they're doing. I mean, how does all that alignment take place? Yeah, well, a lot of times it's not this huge misalignment. Okay, good. So I think organizations, even if they're a little self-conscious about certain things or maybe have been feeling the effects of misalignment, that most often, their partners, their funders, their staff, their clients really appreciate and love what they do. And so I kind of liken it more to, it's usually not like a whole new path is revealed as you talk to people, but what you do find are all these little pebbles rather than moving a big rock. We're finding little pebbles along those relationships. And so by able to pick those out and say, these certain situations aren't making me feel welcome or I have no idea what's going on in this part of your organization, it really, doing this work helps clear those pebbles so that you're not tripping over them and you're really able to focus on your work. Just as another example, I worked with an organization that had a amazing founder who really grew the organization a ton and was getting a lot of attention, but their number two was welcoming to me because they felt like something was affecting the relationships and by doing this work, we were able to realize that partners and people outside the organization really only felt like the CEO was the only person they could trust to make the decisions, not that they didn't trust the rest of the staff, but they just felt like, oh, if we make a decision, it's just gonna get overridden by the CEO. And so the CEO didn't see this, but as we brought this up, the directors were like, oh, yeah, I've been having this problem, this problem, this problem, and it's all cause now I can see it's cause they don't, they don't trust that our conversation is the final conversation. And so that is an area that was maybe a little bigger than a pebble, but an area where they could start to really address how do they give power to the rest of their leadership so that they can do their best work. Right, you know, it's so interesting because a lot of times within strategic planning, we identify who's going to lead whatever that action is, how it's gonna be reported out. And so we don't have some of these things defined and structured, the strategic plan becomes a whole mess. I can see how that ecosystem of performance and decision making factors in a way that it's really powerful, but not always identifiable. I wonder before we let you go, and I have so many more questions, it seems to me that a lot of funders, board members, stakeholders, they kind of demand a strategic plan, whether they know if it's good or it's bad or it's accurate or it's being worked, whatever is not the question. It's almost like they want that book, that might just be sitting on a shelf, right? Sit on the shelf, yeah. It's on the shelf and until you bring it out before the next strategic plan, and you're like, oh yeah, we forgot about that. We didn't do this, we didn't do that. How do you communicate to your stakeholders in the community that you're in this process, that maybe you're not gonna just do a strategic plan like everyone else, or you're gonna look at it differently? What does that look like? Yeah, I find a lot of people feeling like they should do a strategic plan. And a lot of times that is coming from funders or board members who know that's what nonprofits do. But I would say if your intuition is saying, yeah, this just doesn't feel right, it's probably onto something because just, should doing a strategic plan really isn't a great reason for it? And so the question I always ask is what are those funders really looking for? And what I typically find is that you have funders, they want to know that you're thinking ahead, that you're not just focused on the now, that you have not only a vision statement, but a vision and have processes to get there. So when you start to pull apart what a strategic plan is and the value you wanna get out of it, we can start to look at doesn't have to be a book. It could be a spreadsheet. It could be a series of pictures that are your inspire you, but also talk about your plan for the future and allow you to share it with people who don't wanna read a big book. So once we start to think through that, and that's usually part of my process is really, and grounding and like, well, now that we know the challenges and know what you wanna prioritize, what's the best tool for you to move forward? Because it could be a strategic plan in various formats, but it could be something else. You might have a team of visual thinkers and they really need something different than, 12 pages of words, but that might be your thing. So I think I like to take words and really pull them apart. Like, what are we really talking about? And that starts to answer that question of what you need to do. You know, Emily, this has been such an amazing conversation and it's really an important conversation, especially this time of the year as we're looking forward. A lot of changes are occurring right now in the nonprofit sector and across all society, but it's just for our sector, it's such an important time to be thinking about this. Before I let you go, can you give us an idea and not just your company, but what we should be looking at when we go out to find somebody that can facilitate this? What would that budget range look like? The budget range could be huge. So I'm not quite even sure how to put a number to it, but I think really going back into finding what you need because you can do strategic planning on your own and you can hire people into the tens of thousands of dollars, but in a pre-strategic plan, you really need the time to be thoughtful and reflective so that you can find the right answer. And I know, I think we're talking, I do have a resource that people can also grab as well that will help them think through, do they need to take that stuff back or not? Awesome, and they can find Emily Taylor, Principal of Teeny Big, go to teeny, T-E-E-N-Y-B-I-G, teenybig.com and check out her website. And that's where you can find those resources and that information. Oh, if you're able to include the link, we can add it to this, but yeah, I don't think I have it on there at the moment, but people can certainly reach out to me and I can get it to them. Awesome, very, very good. Well, Emily, it's been great to have this conversation with you. I like a lot of what you said, it's stuff that I haven't heard before. I do think that across the sector, 1.8 million nonprofits registered in this country, they all feel like they gotta have this strategic plan and why or how they use it is a whole nother story. Unfortunately, it seems like we just rushed to get this done, like it's a pro forma issue. And so I appreciate you helping us understand how we can step back and maybe look at the strategic plan in a different way. I also wanna add that I noticed even like with the different accounting companies and finance companies that we work with or that come on the show, we learn this from your part-time controller. I mean, they're working more and more with DataViz. I mean, understanding that they can't just be communicating in the same old, same old, that they have to embrace different ways of sharing information. So what you said was fascinating to me because I think that's where a lot of us are kind of trying to navigate towards. And so it'll be really interesting to start to hear more and more about that. Very, very important. Very, very cool. Totally. Yeah. Well, Emily, we, again, so appreciate you coming with us and being with us today. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd, honest to goodness is conducting a strategic planning seminar today. And we couldn't have scheduled this. It was just like a crazy thing, but that's how it happened. So anyway, she'll be back with us shortly. Again, we have so many amazing folks that partner with us and they include Bloomerang, the American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, staffing boutique, your part-time controller, 180 management group, fundraising academy at National University, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. They've joined us along with Emily Taylor today to get into some of the weeds on some of these things so that you can achieve your mission, vision and values. And we are super grateful for that. Okay, my new friend, you've given me a lot to think about today and that's always a great thing. So thank you. But it was great to talk to you, Julia. A lot of fun. And I think that we need to have you back on as we start to rethink this whole drama. And I'm gonna call it out of the drama and nonprofit strategic planning. Not too many- For sure. Yeah, not too many people show up and say, whoa, I can't wait to do that, right? It's usually just like a uh. And so I love- Yeah, let's make it less and more purposeful, intentional and helpful. Yeah, and really a tool to your point and that it becomes helpful and it gives us a roadmap that we can use. Well, Emily, every day we end the nonprofit show with this monitor and I will share it with you, our viewers and of course our listeners. And that is to stay well so that you can do well. We hope that you have a great day and we'll see you back here tomorrow.