Connecting Strategic and Operational Goals and Accountabilities
Spreadsheets and tables can become helpful tools to record and define pillars, strategic goals, annual goals, tactics for annual goals, and who will be accountable for implementation. It’s helpful to develop an on-screen version of your written strategic plan that can be shared with your governing body and employees. It can then be modified for use with external audiences if desired.
An important note: the twelve-month operating plan is developed by your executive team and leaders in departments associated with the pillars, not the board of directors.
Unless your organization is run completely by the board of directors with no paid staff (as many small nonprofits are), your governing body should not be driving your firm’s operational goals. When the annual operating plan has been completed, your executive team should take it back to the board, council, or trustees and share your annual plan in a follow-up presentation.
Here’s an example of how a trade association visually connected strategic goals to annual operating goals, showing how the strategic goals would be measured. This simple slide quickly communicates the linkage between the pillar, the strategic goal, the supporting annual operating goals, and how the strategic goal will be measured.
