If your game plan includes reading on the subject of strategic planning, here are some suggestions.

Quick Tips:

The Board Member's Guide to Strategic Planning, A Practical Approach to Strengthening Nonprofit Organizations, by Fisher Howe, Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Only 114 pages, this book packs in real world examples from some 10 organizations. It focuses on what versus how: how to plan and how to act on the plan. It also covers the vocabulary used in strategic planning, and how to conduct planning meetings, including the possible use of facilitators. Strategic planning is important "as a basis for strong governance, by the board, effective management by the executive and staff, effective fund raising by both board and staff, and constructive program evaluation by all the participants."

The material is not new ground, but it is a new focus: on the board member of a nonprofit organization. Although directed at the organization's top level board, much will be useful to a unit's board as well. Chapters, divisions, and committees will be most effective if they have plans in place, as will less formal units such as caucuses. A strategic plan provides an anchor to help control the fast past of change--anchor in this sense being positive rather than a deterrent.

Since SLA has a mission, vision, and strategic plan in place, the units already have a foundation upon which to build. But each chapter, division, caucus, and committee will want to customize those documents to fit their own place within the association. This book discusses what it takes to develop those statements. A small, but pointed, section on overcoming objections to planning may be useful. It concludes by reminding us to put the plan into action. To insure the book doesn't just gather dust on a shelf, it "avoids cliches and bland generalizations, and it tackles the key issues."

If you only have an hour to spend learning or reviewing the topic, choose this title. [available via interlibrary loan from SLA's Information Resources Center]

Creating and Implementing Your Strategic Plan, A Workbook for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, by John M. Bryson, Jossey-Bass, 1996.

This is a brief overview of the "process of strategic change." Most of the book is worksheets and discussion questions. It's barely over 100 pages, so it is a quick-use tool.

More In-Depth Discussions on Strategic Planning:

Strategic Management in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, by Jack Koteen, Praeger, 1991.

Several issues of interest to SLAers are covered here: the role of volunteers, getting good ideas from members forwarded up to the leaders, dealing with continuity when there is frequent turnover in leadership. It describes an organization with a strategic plan as an "informed opportunist" that has a plan in place so everyone is ready to snag good stuff as it floats by.

There is an interesting chapter on teams and some good comments on when and why they fail. Although the book is more business oriented than association oriented, it provides more detail than the Howe title.

Strategic Planning for Not-For-Profit Organizations, R. Henry Migliore, Haworth Press, 1995.

Here is a step-by-step guide to the process with worksheets and sample plans. It is a "how to do it" but more academic/theoretical than some of the others. There are really great one- or two-line quotes at the beginning of each chapter, and each chapter ends with a list of questions to help focus your efforts on that stage of the process.

General Works:

Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, Robert D Herman and Associates, Jossey-Bass, 1994.

This is a big handbook designed for those who are employed by nonprofit organizations, a compilation of authors with broad coverage. One chapter is specifically on strategic planning and action planning: why is it here to stay, why it is needed to make political decisions by rational organizations. Political is defined as the raising and resolving issues for the benefit of an organization. If you only have time for 30 pages, try this chapter out for size.

Managing the Nonprofit Organization, Principles and Practices, by Peter F.Drucker, HarperCollins, 1990.

Drucker's thoughts on strategic planning: a nonprofit's product is a changed human being and the organization is a human-change agent. Improving and innovating what we already do well needs a continuing strategy. Strategy converts mission and objectives into performance...and exploits opportunity. Many of the chapters are interviews with nonprofit leaders. As a whole, the book is more focused on marketing, but the strategic issues are a theme throughout, with everything tied to the mission of the organization.

Hayes is president, Oak Arbor Publishing and president-elect of SLA. She may be reached via e-mail at: suzi@pb.seflin.org.