Our full service strategic planning provides a dedicated consultant to facilitate your nonprofit’s planning process. Over a six to eight month period, we help with every step of the process outlined in planning process description (found on this page).
In every full service strategic planning engagement, our consultant will work directly with your work group and board so that your organization has an achievable and useful strategic plan.
Praise from a Strategic Planning Partner
Simply put, Dolph was outstanding. GLA Board members and I worked with Dolph over a six-month period to create a Strategic Plan that is transforming our organization. Dolph challenged our organization to reach further programmatically. He challenged what was already a highly-functioning Board to go above and beyond their current obligations. Because of Dolph, the Board is operating at an extraordinary level. Dolph showed time and again through this process why board relations and governance are his expertise.
– Meredith Ragains, Executive Director
Georgia Lawyers for the Arts
Two Most Common Questions
Nonprofit executives and board members ask these two questions all the time:
- What do you charge a nonprofit for strategic planning?
- What is your role as a strategic planning consultant?
The person typically asks about money first and role second, but we always discuss the consultant’s role first. After all, the role your consultant plays in strategic planning will ultimately determine how much they charge for a quality strategic plan that will propel your organization forward. You can see our brief explanation of roles to the right.
Since many different options exist for assigning work between the consultant and the organization, we typically offer three different work-share options to a prospective client.
Consultant as Facilitator
The consultant merely facilitates the nonprofit’s strategic planning process, and a core group does the work. In this situation, the facilitator provides a general structure, templates and tools, facilitation and project management. The work group is fully responsible for the environmental scan and drafting the final plan. This is often the least expensive option because the heavy lifting is done by the work group.
Consultant as Facilitator and Planner
This is the most common type of strategic planning consulting in the nonprofit sector, and it allows the organization to rise to its planning abilities while knowing that a consultant will do the work that the organization cannot.
Option I
- Create timeline and framework for planning
- Facilitate all work group meetings
- Provide all project management
- Offer templates for all necessary tools for strategic planning (and modify the templates with group feedback)
- Share advice and research on best practices
- Coach work group through environmental scan and analysis
- Analyze metrics of board performance
- Provide template for environmental scan presentation to the board
- Facilitate board retreat
- Provide template for final strategic plan document
- Share feedback on final document to the board
- Written report summarizing engagement
Estimated Cost: $13,350*
(Option I requires the most amount of effort from your work group members and staff)
Option II
- Includes everything listed in Option I
- Interview board members as part of the environmental scan and board analysis (instead of the work group)
- Draft the initial report on environmental scan, recommendations, and priorities in preparation for the board retreat (instead of the work group)
- Draft a revenue plan to support strategic plan implementation (instead of the work group)
Estimated Cost: $17,500*
(Option II requires less effort from your work group members and staff)
Option III
- Includes everything listed in Options I and II
- Draft strategic plan, including goals, action plan, timelines, and resources for work group review and feedback (instead of the work group)
- Facilitate strategic plan “deep dive” with board prior to approval
Estimated Cost: $21,500*
(Option III requires the least amount of effort from your work group members and staff)
*Plus travel expenses if your nonprofit organization is more than a one-hour drive from downtown Atlanta