Shared Power Strategy™
Most nonprofit strategies are shaped by too few people. Boards, senior leaders, and funders often have a strong voice, while the people and communities most affected by the work are asked for input too late, too lightly, or not at all.
Shared Power Strategy™ changes that. It helps nonprofits clarify the roles of boards, staff, funders, partners, and the people they serve, then involve the right stakeholders at the right times to build strategies that are more inclusive, practical, and optimized for impact.
Strategy is stronger when the people closest to the mission help shape it.
Nonprofit strategy should not be shaped by boards and funders alone. The people closest to your mission — the people and communities you serve, your staff, your partners, and other stakeholders — hold essential insight into what your organization should prioritize and how your work can create meaningful change.
Shared Power Strategy™ is our philosophy for making that possible. It does not mean every decision is made by consensus. It means the right voices shape the right parts of the strategy, and the people most affected by your work have meaningful influence over the direction of your work.
Shared Power Strategy™ clarifies who should shape strategy, and how.
The goal is not to flatten every decision or blur every role. It is to rebalance power so each stakeholder group contributes where their perspective is most essential.
Boards govern. Staff lead with expertise. Funders enable the mission. The people and communities served are no longer treated as a secondary audience. Their priorities help shape the direction of the work from the beginning.
Different stakeholders hold different kinds of power, insight, and responsibility.
A Shared Power Strategy™ process makes those roles explicit, then designs engagement so each group contributes in the ways that matter most.
Govern and steward
Boards help steward the organization’s future, make key governance decisions, and ensure the strategy is responsible, ambitious, and mission-aligned.
Lead with expertise
Staff bring operational knowledge, program expertise, and insight into what it will take to make the strategy real in day-to-day work.
Enable the mission
Funders can strengthen the work when their support follows community priorities rather than distorting what the organization feels pressured to pursue.
Shape the direction
The people and communities served hold essential insight into what should change, what is working, and what impact should actually look like.
Shared Power Strategy™ is based on five simple rules that can be difficult to follow well.
These rules guide how we help nonprofits develop strategic plans, communications strategies, fundraising strategies, and other major organizational strategies.
Be accountable
Hold your strategy up to the scrutiny of the people it affects, not just the people who approve or fund it.
Be beneficiary-centered
Put the priorities of the people and communities you serve first, not as an afterthought.
Be collaborative
Bring diverse stakeholders together to shape strategy in ways that are meaningful, accessible, and useful.
Be decisive
Use stakeholder insight to make better choices, then keep moving instead of getting stuck in endless consensus-building.
Keep evolving
Continue listening, measuring, learning, and adapting as your community’s needs and priorities change.
What Shared Power Strategy™ looks like in real nonprofit strategy work
The exact process is different for every organization, because stakeholder needs, accessibility, decision-making structures, and strategic questions are different every time. But Shared Power Strategy™ often shows up in practices like these:
Listening before deciding
Surveys, interviews, and listening sessions help your team understand stakeholder perceptions and priorities before major strategic choices are made.
Testing ideas with stakeholders
Program participants, community members, partners, funders, staff, board members, and other stakeholders can react to early strategic pillars, messaging, or approaches before they are finalized.
Building feedback into implementation
Shared power should continue after a plan is approved through progress reporting, stakeholder feedback loops, and ongoing refinement.
- ✓Stakeholder surveys to understand perceptions, needs, and priorities
- ✓Listening sessions with program participants, community members, staff, board members, and partners
- ✓Focus groups to test new messaging, priorities, or approaches
- ✓Stakeholder committees that provide input alongside a core planning committee
- ✓Draft review opportunities before strategic plans, marketing plans, or fundraising plans are finalized
- ✓Progress reports that invite stakeholder input on what should be adjusted over time
Shared Power Strategy™ defines how strategy should be shaped. The Nonprofit Strategy System defines how strategy becomes actionable.
Together, they help nonprofits build strategies that are inclusive, measurable, practical enough to implement, and optimized for mission impact.
The result
A strategy that stakeholders helped shape, leaders can use to make decisions, and teams can translate into priorities, OKRs, action plans, and measurable progress.
Want to bring Shared Power Strategy™ into the way your nonprofit works?
Download the Shared Power Strategy™ Rule Book to learn more about the five rules every nonprofit can follow to build strategies that are more effective, inclusive, and equitable.
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Ready to discuss your nonprofit’s strategy needs with us? Get in touch.
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