In countless nonprofit board rooms, at organizations of all shapes and sizes. well-intentioned leaders embark on strategic planning processes that follow the same predictable pattern. Board members share their perspectives on organizational priorities, staff contribute their departmental insights, and (often in a way that feels more a bit like checking a box), a survey is sent to the constituents the organization serves asking for their input.
Then, six months later, these same leaders express frustration when their beautifully crafted strategic plan sits on a shelf, implementation stalls, or worse yet, key stakeholders express that the planned approach is not really meeting their needs. Sound familiar?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most nonprofits are approaching strategic planning with a fundamental blind spot. They’re planning for their communities rather than with them, and it’s costing them dearly in terms of buy-in, effectiveness, and ultimately, impact.
The Hidden Cost of Narrow Stakeholder Engagement
Let me paint a picture of what typical nonprofit strategic planning looks like. The board chair calls for a strategic planning retreat. The organization hires a consultant (hopefully a good one!), gathers the board and senior staff for a day or weekend of intensive planning, maybe conducts a brief survey of constituents, donors and partners, and emerges with a polished document outlining the next three to five years.
On paper, this seems reasonable. The people closest to the organization’s operations and governance are making the decisions. But here’s what’s missing: deep enegagement with the people and communities you’re actually serving, the frontline staff who interact with your constituents daily, the community partners who see your work from different angles, and the funders who will need to champion your new direction.
When we exclude these critical voices from meaningful engagement in strategic planning, we’re essentially making assumptions about what our communities need, what our partners value, and what our stakeholders will support. And we all know what happens when we assume.
I’ve seen this play out in devastating ways. A homeless services organization that spent months developing a new program model, only to discover that their target population had completely different priorities than what the board had assumed. A youth development nonprofit that restructured their programming based on staff and board input, then struggled to secure funding because they hadn’t engaged their funders in conversations about the changing landscape and emerging opportunities.
It doesn’t have to be this way. You can engage all your nonprofit’s holders not just at the onset of strategic planning, but throughout and even after the process. In fact, you must.
Expanding Your Definition of Strategic Planning Stakeholders
So who should be at the table when you’re charting your organization’s future? The answer is more expansive than many nonprofits realize.
Internal Stakeholders include not just your board and senior leadership, but also your frontline staff, volunteers, and yes, even part-time and contract workers who interact with your mission daily. These individuals often have the most direct insight into what’s working, what’s not, and what your constituents are really saying when leadership isn’t in the room. At the very least, they’re likely to bring up blind spots your leadership team may miss.
External Stakeholders encompass your donors and funders (both current and prospective), community partners, allied organizations, government officials, and other nonprofits working in your space. Each of these groups brings a different perspective on your organization’s role in the broader ecosystem and can offer insights into opportunities and challenges you might not see from your internal vantage point.
But here’s the group that’s most often overlooked and arguably most important: your constituents—the people and communities you directly serve. Whether they’re students in your programs, families accessing your services, community members participating in your initiatives, or beneficiaries of your advocacy work, these individuals have the most at stake in your strategic decisions, yet they’re the ones organizations tend to involve least in strategic planning.
Think about it this way: if you’re a food bank, shouldn’t the people experiencing food insecurity have a say in how you evolve your services? If you’re running educational programs, shouldn’t your students and their families be central to conversations about your future direction? If you’re advocating for policy change, shouldn’t the communities most affected by those policies be helping to shape your strategy?
The excuse I hear most often is, “But our constituents don’t have the organizational knowledge to contribute meaningfully to strategic planning.” This perspective is not only patronizing—it’s also strategically short-sighted. Your constituents may not understand your budget constraints or the intracacies of board governance, but they are the experts on their own needs, experiences and what would make your services more effective or accessible.
Creative Approaches to Comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “This sounds great in theory, but how do we actually engage this wide range of stakeholders without turning strategic planning into a never-ending process?”
The key is to think beyond the traditional board retreat model and embrace a more dynamic, multi-touchpoint approach that meets people where they are and values different types of input.
Start with Discovery Before Design
Before you even begin drafting strategic priorities, invest time in genuine discovery. Aim to conduct both broad surveys for meaningful quantitative feedback, and in-depth interviews with representatives from each stakeholder group.
For staff, start one-on-one conversations that go beyond “What do you think we should focus on?” Ask about the conversations they’re having with constituents, the challenges they’re seeing on the ground, and the opportunities they’re noticing but may not have felt comfortable raising in staff meetings.
For community partners, explore questions like: “Where do you see the biggest gaps in our shared community?” “What would make our partnership more effective?” “What trends are you seeing that we should be considering?”
For constituents, focus on understanding their lived experiences: “Tell me about a time when our services really worked for you.” “What barriers do you face that we might not be aware of?” “If you could change one thing about how we operate, what would it be?”
The goal isn’t just to collect data—it’s to build understanding and uncover insights that will inform your strategic thinking.
Reimagine Your Planning Retreat
Who says strategic planning retreats have to be limited to board and staff? Consider creating a planning committee that includes constituent representatives, key community partners, and major funders alongside your board and leadership team.
I’ve facilitated retreats where, for part of the planning day, community members sat at the same tables as board members, contributing their perspectives on organizational priorities and helping to shape strategic goals. The conversations were richer, the insights more grounded, and the final plan more robust because it reflected a true diversity of perspectives.
If including community members in your full retreat feels too complex, consider creating a parallel process where constituents engage in their own structured planning conversations, then present their recommendations to the board and staff retreat. This ensures their voices are central to strategic decisions while acknowledging that different groups may be most comfortable engaging in different settings.
Create Multiple Feedback Loops
Strategic planning shouldn’t be a one-and-done engagement process. Build in multiple opportunities for stakeholders to provide input as your plan develops.
After your initial planning retreat, share draft priorities and goals with your broader stakeholder community through listening sessions, focus groups, and yes, surveys—but surveys that are designed to gather specific feedback on concrete proposals rather than general satisfaction ratings.
Through engagement opportunities like these, you can present your draft strategic plan to different stakeholder groups and ask targeted questions: “Based on your experience with our organization, do these priorities address the most critical needs?” “What might we be overlooking?” “How would these changes affect your partnership with us?”
Establish Ongoing Feedback Channels
Strategic planning doesn’t end when you finalize your strategic plan. Make sure to keep your stakeholders informed about how the implementation of your strategic plan is going, and then create anonymous feedback channels that allow stakeholders to share insights, concerns, and suggestions throughout your plan’s implementation.
This might be as simple as a suggestion box in your lobby, an online form linked from your website, or regular “coffee chat” sessions where community members can drop in and share their thoughts. The key is making it easy for people to provide honest feedback without fear of judgment or retaliation.
I’ve also seen organizations create “strategic plan advisory groups” that meet quarterly to review progress and provide ongoing input. These groups include rotating representation from different stakeholder categories and serve as a continuous feedback loop to ensure your plan stays relevant and responsive. Our Objectives and Key Results system can make opportunities like these particularly valuable by providing a structured way to report out to your stakeholders on how your strategic plan implementation is going and where things might be going off track.
Overcoming Common Obstacles
Let’s address the elephant in the room: comprehensive stakeholder engagement is more complex and time-consuming than traditional strategic planning approaches. But the obstacles that seem insurmountable are often more manageable than they appear. Let’s take a look at some common objections and how to get over them.
“We don’t have the budget for extensive stakeholder engagement.”
Meaningful engagement doesn’t have to be expensive. Some of the most effective stakeholder input I’ve seen has come from informal conversations, piggyback sessions added to existing meetings, and volunteer-facilitated focus groups. Consider partnering with local universities to have students conduct interviews as part of their coursework, or asking staff or board members to each facilitate a listening session with different stakeholder groups.
“Our constituents are too busy/don’t have transportation/can’t participate in traditional meetings.”
This is exactly why you need to meet people where they are. Conduct interviews over coffee, set up listening sessions at community events, offer childcare and transportation, or create virtual participation options. You can even consider compensation, as long as you’re sensitive to the financial situations of your stakeholders and tax implications for compensating them beyond a specific amount. If your strategic planning process isn’t accessible to your constituents, it’s probably not accessible to your mission either.
“We’re worried about raising expectations we can’t meet.”
Transparency is your friend here. Be clear about what you’re asking for, how the input will be used, and what stakeholders can and can’t expect as outcomes. People appreciate honesty about constraints and limitations—what they don’t appreciate is being asked for input that’s then ignored.
“We don’t know how to facilitate conversations with such diverse groups.”
This is where investing in facilitation skills or external support pays dividends. Consider bringing in facilitators who specialize in community engagement and have lived experience that is aligned with your constituents, or training your own staff in inclusive facilitation techniques.
The Strategic Advantage of Inclusive Planning
Here’s what I’ve observed in organizations that embrace comprehensive stakeholder engagement in their strategic planning: they don’t just create better plans—they build stronger, more resilient organizations.
When your staff, board, funders, partners, and constituents all have a voice in shaping your strategic direction, several powerful things happen:
Implementation becomes easier because stakeholders understand and own the decisions. They’re not being asked to support someone else’s plan—they’re supporting a plan they helped create.
Innovation increases because you’re tapping into the collective wisdom and creativity of your entire community. The best ideas often come from unexpected places, and frontline staff and community members frequently have insights that boardroom conversations miss.
Relationships deepen because the strategic planning process becomes an exercise in community building. When people feel genuinely heard and valued, their investment in your organization’s success increases.
Adaptability improves because you’ve created ongoing feedback mechanisms that help you course-correct as conditions change. Rather than being locked into a static plan, you have a dynamic strategy that can evolve with your community’s needs.
Credibility strengthens because your strategic plan reflects real community input and priorities. When funders, partners, and community members see that your plan emerged from genuine engagement rather than boardroom assumptions, they’re more likely to support and champion your work.
Making It Happen: Your Next Steps
If you’re convinced that your next strategic planning process needs to be more inclusive but feeling overwhelmed about how to begin, start small and build momentum.
Begin with one expansion: If you typically only engage board and staff, add one additional stakeholder group to your next planning process. Maybe it’s key funders, maybe it’s frontline volunteers, or maybe it’s a small group of program participants (my preference) . Learn from that experience before expanding further.
Audit your current assumptions: Before you start engaging stakeholders, spend time identifying what assumptions your organization is making about community needs, stakeholder priorities, and environmental trends. This will help you craft engagement questions that actually test those assumptions rather than just confirming what you already believe.
Invest in relationship building: Meaningful stakeholder engagement requires trust, and trust takes time to build. Start cultivating relationships with key stakeholders now, even if your next strategic planning process is a year away. The quality of your engagement will be directly related to the quality of your relationships.
Design for different communication styles: Not everyone processes information or shares feedback in the same way. Some people are comfortable speaking up in large groups, others prefer one-on-one conversations, and still others express themselves best in writing. Create multiple ways for people to engage with your strategic planning process.
Document and share what you learn: Make sure the insights you gather through stakeholder engagement are visible throughout your planning process. Share themes from interviews, create visual summaries of listening sessions, and make sure all planning participants understand how community input is shaping strategic decisions.
The Future of Nonprofit Strategic Planning
The nonprofit sector is evolving, and our approach to strategic planning needs to evolve with it. The organizations that will thrive in the coming decades are those that understand that strategic planning is not just an internal organizational process—it’s a community engagement opportunity.
When we expand our definition of who belongs at the strategic planning table, we don’t just create better plans. We model the kind of inclusive, participatory leadership that our communities need. We demonstrate that we value the voices and experiences of the people we serve. And we build the kind of authentic community partnerships that make our work more effective and sustainable.
Your next strategic planning process is an opportunity to signal what kind of organization you want to be: one that plans for your community, or one that plans with your community. The choice—and the voices you include—will shape not just your strategic plan, but your organization’s future.
The boardroom is a good place to start strategic conversations, but it’s a terrible place to finish them. Your community is waiting to be heard. The question is: are you ready to listen?
