i had a chance this week to meet with two non-profit institutions to discuss their business strategies. what i found is that both had recently completed long and arduous strategy efforts (in one case almost a year) and both were proud of their results. yet, both "strategies" were inviable by definition;
- one was simply a list of over 100 "things to be done" with no priority, implementation assessment, nor funding sources
- the other was simply a listing of 7 high level topics, omitting any critical thinking below this top level
non-profits are a business and they must be as rigorous in their strategy process and thinking as any Fortune 500 company. strategies require focused thinking based upon vision, goals, corporate personality, corporate capabilities and a number of other factors. any strategy that presents as its results more than 5 to 7 primary initiatives is inviable by definition. any strategy that fails to perform critical thinking below the top level of direction setting, (e.g. use technology to improve medical outreach), is inviable by definition.
non profits who continue to treat business strategy as a social and publicity exercise should be called "non-budgets", since that is where they will end up.
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