I am sure that you have heard of the quote by Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to know when you get there?” Why begin with the end in mind? Spending some time to think about your long-term goals – what you hope to accomplish in three, five or ten years – will pay off exponentially in the impact that you will have.
While your leadership team and board members can often be eager to jump right into program and strategy development, a results-setting process helps organizations be more deliberate and strategic moving forward. When we talk about results, we are talking about the change that your organization wants to make with the targeted audience.
If an after school organization wants to help children improve their academics (result), then they would work closely with the schools and teachers to select a research-based curriculum and align it with their school-day learning (strategy).
By focusing on their end result – improving academic achievement of participants – the after school program can be strategic in selecting a curriculum that has been proven to support the accomplishment of that goal.
Starting with the end in mind will allow you to:
- Develop a BASELINE to demonstrate progress. Once you have established how well your clients are currently doing, you can track and monitor any change that occurs as they participate in your program. Then there are cascading questions to answer, such as why or why not did that change happen and what changes can we make (internally or externally) to improve positive outcomes?
- Make INFORMED and SMART choices in the design and development of your solutions that are focused on your results. Now, you can connect the dots from where you are, where you want to go, and how you will get there.
- COMMUNICATE both internally with your team and externally with your partners around what is most important to your organization. Working together to get clarity and consensus about the results you want to pursue will build unity within your organization and excite your partners.
- EXPAND the support for your programs with potential investors as they can clearly see the value that you add to your community.
Are you clear about the results that your organization is working towards achieving? If not, contact us to schedule a consultation to discuss how we can help you develop a results-based process.
