Is Nonprofit Strategic Planning Dead? Scenario planning for a VUCA and BANI world
Some have argued that strategic planning is dead. They argue that the world moves too fast and changes too quickly to make planning meaningful. In our “VUCA” – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – a world characterized by disruption - you just cannot plan for the future. They point out that the practice of long-term planning rose to the forefront during the 50s and 60s when the rate of change was slower. Today people have gone further to say that VUCA does not quite capture the time we are in. A new acronym of BANI - brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible - has emerged.
Reactivity or Shaping your future?
Certainly the rate of change may seem dizzying today. Or perhaps it is the rate and volume of information coming at us that makes it seem like everything is moving too fast (but that is another topic altogether). Yet I would contend that without planning–especially longer term strategic planning or strategic thinking—you leave your organization prone to either business as usual or staying caught in a cycle of reactivity.
Predicting the Future?
Strategic planning does not enable you to predict the future. There is a hidden assumption that in order to do strategic planning effectively you have to somehow know the future. This trips people up. Even futurists cannot accurately predict the future though they spend their professional lives watching trends and making educated guesses. One approach – scenario planning - enables you to flesh out possible futures and plan for them. I will describe this in more detail below.
What is strategic planning?
What is strategic planning? I like Allison and Kaye’s definition: “A systematic process through which an organization agrees on and builds key stakeholder commitment to priorities that are essential to its mission and responsive to the organizational environment.” A more straightforward way to say this is that your organization is engaging in a process to step back, consider where you are, where you have been and set some intentions about where you want to head next.
Taking Stock
Every nonprofit strategic consulting project begins with a discovery stage or listening tour. A time to research and hear from stakeholders and constituents. A time to hear stories about the past, assessments of the present and aspirations for the future. Depending on the project the exact focus will differ. The consultant also digs into past work – past strategic plans, other research, basic organizational documents such as by laws, financials, organizational charts, board minutes, work plans, etc. The goal is to begin to get a sense of the current state of the organization. With this grounding in what the organization has documented, the consultant will then dive into talking with stakeholders – through interviews, focus groups and surveys. For a deeper dive into the listening tour process, click here.
Sifting for Nuggets
The next step is to synthesize all this data. This step can be overwhelming when you are sifting through piles of interview and focus group notes to look for the significant nuggets. But once it comes together in the form of themes the gold starts to shine through.
Gift of Listening
One of the real powerful aspects of all this work comes through the interactions with the people you interview, listen to in a focus group, ask for feedback in a survey. Too rarely in organizational life are people asked to reflect on and talk about their experience within the organization. Each interview is an opportunity to be a gift of true listening.
The sigh of recognition
Sharing the synthesis of the research is the point of truth. When I succeed in accurately capturing what I heard and my highlights resonate with the people whom I have gathered it from – you can often hear an audible sigh of relief and recognition. “You really heard us,” is music to my ears.
When the information prompts the relaxation that comes with – “oh I am not alone – lots of other people think like I do but we just have not been discussing it,” Something powerful happens.
Be ready for change
The act of being truly heard and seen empowers people to stand in their lived experience and then take action. This could be to face a difficult challenge or have a difficult conversation. This could be to dream bigger for their organization and start envisioning how to take action towards it. The group will not be the same afterwards. Be ready for change when you ask for input.
Navigating Uncertainty with Scenario Planning
Once you have a shared understanding of your organization’s current state, its strengths and challenges and your stakeholders aspirations for the future, you need to look wider in your planning process. You need to also take stock of the wider trends that are impacting your organization and its mission.
With the level of uncertainty we are currently facing, it is easy for nonprofit leaders feeling overwhelmed—or worse, paralyzed. Scenario planning is an approach that isn't new, but it’s especially timely right now, given the sheer unpredictability of our world.
Making sense of the wider context
Scenario planning is a way to make sense of those wider trends and their implications for your organization. Scenario planning is a strategic method that helps you imagine a range of possible futures. Instead of betting on one likely outcome, you sketch out multiple scenarios—positive, negative, and in-between—and then pinpoint how your organization could respond in each situation. The goal is not to find a crystal ball; it’s to build agility and resilience.
Scenario planning Definition and Purpose
At its core, scenario planning allows nonprofit organizations to anticipate various “futures” and devise strategies ahead of time. Rather than fixating on a single “best guess,” you identify key drivers—such as shifts in government support or changes in donor trends—and map them onto different outcomes.
Example: One driver might be the strength or weakness of our democratic institutions; another could be the trends in funding stability. By putting these on a simple two-by-two matrix, you get four possible futures, each of which demands its own plan of action.
Why Now?
With daily headlines often bringing unsettling news, nonprofits can quickly spiral into fear-based paralysis. Scenario planning offers a structured way to manage that uncertainty. You acknowledge the anxiety-inducing possibilities, and then you imagine realistic outcomes and strategize accordingly.
How It Works
Scan the Environment: Gather your board and staff to list out political, economic, cultural, technological, and environmental factors that could impact your work.
Choose Key Factors: Narrow down the most significant forces—maybe its governmental policy shifts or the potential for funding cuts.
Plot the Matrix: For each major factor, picture both extremes (such as “funding shrinks” vs. “funding stabilizes”). Cross those on a two-by-two grid to form four scenarios.
Name and Describe Each Scenario: Bring them to life with vivid details. What would it feel like if this scenario happened? What would it be like to live in this scenario? To do your work?
Plan Your Response: Identify how you’d adapt in each scenario. What resources do you need? Who should you collaborate with?
Identify Key Signals: Determine the early warning signs that let you know which scenario might be unfolding.
The beauty is that while you can’t predict the future, you can absolutely prepare for it.
Scenario planning in action
I recently facilitated a scenario planning session for a client integrating it into their strategic planning process. Initially, they arrived feeling anxious and overwhelmed by outside pressures—everything from political tensions to funding challenges.
During the retreat, they zeroed in on two major uncertainties and crafted four distinct scenarios, each with a memorable name like “Broke but Protected” and “Climate of Chaos.” What surprised them was the overlap in how they’d respond, even though each future had its own flavor of tension. By focusing on what they could control, they found action steps that worked across all four possibilities.
As they pieced together their strategic plan the next day, the anxiety began to lift. The process helped them recognize that, while they can’t solve every global issue, they’re not powerless. They can remain nimble, proactive, and mission-focused, no matter what the world throws at them.
[Want a guide to applying this process? Reach out to discuss your strategic planning goals.]
Building muscle memory for future possibilities
Scenario planning is about shifting from “What if everything goes wrong?” to “If this happens, here’s what we’ll do.” It transforms fear into readiness and can invigorate your strategic thinking. By outlining different futures and mapping out practical responses, you build muscle memory that serves your organization no matter which path the world takes.
As you consider your own planning and your organization’s future, remember that you don’t have to be certain of an outcome to move forward confidently. In fact, that’s exactly the kind of mindset that will help you stay steady in shifting times.
Visioning and building a shared future: What do we want to build together?
With a shared understanding of the current state and possible future scenarios, the group is then ready to think about what comes next. One way to think about this is in terms of the favorable conditions that need to be there for success. Asking the questions, When XYZ is going well in the nonprofit organization, what does that make possible for the people? And for people to achieve these results, what are the favorable conditions that need to be in place?” is a powerful place to help move the group to their shared vision.
Getting to the why
This might mean asking “when strategy and mission is going well in the organization, what does that make possible for the people? What does it enable staff, board and volunteers to be able to do better? What are the benefits?” You get at the hopes, aspirations and motivations for the strategy or mission work. And further by asking, “what do they need to know, have access to, be able to do and believe?” – in other words – identifying the favorable conditions for making progress in this area.
Reducing the static
What does this look like in practice? With strategic planning for example – what will be different when you engage in strategic planning? Too often people complain about an involved process that just resulted in a plan that sat on a shelf. When does strategic planning have real benefits for the organization?
Benefits come in the process itself – having time and space to dig into why the organization does what it does. This could uncover misalignment between stakeholders – whether board, staff, clients – on expectations. By uncovering these, they can then be worked through to bring people closer together in their understanding of the organization’s goals.
When done well, the strategic planning process helps the organization focus its resources, letting go of activity that is no longer serving the mission. It can serve to enable the organization to work on reducing the “friction” and “static” within the organization.
Creating favorable conditions for strategic planning success
What are the favorable conditions to make these positive results possible? Favorable conditions would include having an inclusive and participatory process. If people feel like they are simply being told what the goals and priorities are by a few people within the organization, they may or may not be ‘bought in’ to the desired outcomes.
Even if they are included in the process from the outset unless they feel like they can speak openly and honestly, they will just be going through the motions. A second condition that supports success is to have a clear pathway to translate large organizational level goals into team work plans and individual goals for the year. This will facilitate action.
Setting Intentions & Staying Flexible
Eighty five percent of organizations say that they engage in some sort of strategic planning on a regular basis. It enables your organization to think about some possible futures and then make decisions about which you would like to see materialize. It does not, obviously, guarantee that you will make it all happen.
With flexibility built into both the plan and the process, investing the time in strategic planning sets up your organization for success. By taking stock of both external trends, possible future scenarios and internal capacities, then setting targets for how you will proactively work towards your mission, you take charge of your future.
It's just a plan
At the same time, remembering that a plan is just that – a plan – and you will need to adjust it as circumstances change. Take some time to talk through what process you will use to review the plan regularly and make those adjustments. Use the process as an opportunity to define criteria for how you will make decisions about future strategic opportunities and challenges, you will be better prepared when unexpected things pop up.
Strategic planning is dead! Long live strategic planning!
Strategic planning for nonprofits isn’t dead; it has simply evolved. In a world increasingly characterized by volatility, complexity, and unpredictability, scenario planning offers a robust framework to remain both purposeful and adaptable. Rather than fixating on a single outcome, it invites organizations to explore multiple trajectories, build resilience, and stay true to their mission—no matter what twists and turns the future brings.
By maintaining an inclusive and iterative planning process, nonprofits can foster greater buy-in, align their stakeholders, and carve out a clear path toward their goals. And while no plan can fully predict the future, having a flexible roadmap as well as an agreed upon process for making adjustments enables organizations to respond to shifting circumstances. With this confidence and agility, you create a powerful foundation for long-term impact for your mission.
Thinking of engaging in a strategic planning process with your organization and want to learn more? Get in touch with me for a complementary discovery session.