As a professional, you will be called upon to present information for decision making. Based on your Capstone Project, prepare 5–6 PowerPoint slides (not including your title or reference page) that
Running head: THE STRATEGIC PLAN 1
The Strategic Plan for Gift for Life Foundation
Deja Croom
Capstone Project
Walden University
The Strategic Plan for Gift for Life Foundation
Introduction
The paper focuses on the core values, mission and vision of the Gift for Life Foundation, which is the selected organization of choice (Gift for Life Foundation, 2018). The core values, vision and mission of the organization represents the organizational identification and lays the foundation for any strategic plan. Gift for Life Foundation is a humanitarian organization focusing on children; the organization carries out programs aimed at reducing infant mortality, promoting positive parenting and decreasing child neglect and abuse (Gift for Life Foundation, 2018). The organization focuses on child assistance by giving children opportunities to achieve success and personal growth. Ultimately, the organization aims at promoting confidence, independence and life-long learning in children. The paper discusses the organization’s core values and how they are aligned to advocacy and leadership and how they contribute to wellbeing of societies. In addition, it highlights the mission and vision of the organization and lastly it identifies and describes the stakeholders involved in the organization.
The Core Values of Gift for Life Foundation
The Gift for Life Foundation derives its values on the need to help children attain their success. Due to the objectives of the organization, the Gift for Life Foundation has seven core values, which are; excellence, teamwork, respect, accountability, integrity, innovation and passion (Gift for Life Foundation, 2018). The core values guide the organization’s activities and ensure that it meets its objectives even in the most difficult situations. In adhering to its core value about being excellent, the Gift for Life Foundation dedicated to satisfying the needs of children, its workers and honoring the decisions made to children and the people it serves with care (Gift for Life Foundation, 2018).
In relation to teamwork, the organization encourages all its employees to work together as a family while embracing inclusiveness and diversity and attaining the immediate needs of children particularly those who are abandoned, disadvantaged and orphaned. In relation to being innovative, the organization seeks and adopts new ways that can better serve the needs of children. Based on the above understanding, the core values of the organization are aligned with the advocacy in the organization. For instance, the organization lobbies for formulation of policies that ensures access to vulnerable children not only in the America, but also in other parts of the world.
The values of the organization contribute to the well-being of societies. In relation to integrity, which is one of its core values, the organization ensures that it adheres to the ethical standards, acts fairly and honors what it promises the children in need. By being passionate, the society trusts its promises leading to alleviation of suffering among children. In addition, in terms of accountability, the organization is committed to meeting its objectives, which focuses on helping children attain their future successes; such commitment improves the wellbeing of the society.
The Mission of Gift for Life Foundation
The organization’s mission is to meet the immediate needs of children by showing them selfless love and providing opportunities for them to attain their successes. The mission of the organization is aligned to its core values. Notably, meeting the needs of children and providing opportunities for them to succeed is based on being excellent, working as a team, innovative, showing passion and being accountable. The achievement of the mission is based on how well the organization adheres to its core values. For instance, in case of child neglect, the organization responds to the situation immediately so that it can meet the immediate needs of the child; however, the motivation behind the response is passion and accountability. While responding to situations that endanger the lives of children, the organization’s leaders are collaborative and innovative, such that they work creatively and as a family to serve the children in need in a better way.
The mission of the organization promotes leadership because the leaders are appointed based on ability to meet the mission of the organization. In this regard, the leadership of the Gift for Life Foundation contributes to the attainment of the mission. Furthermore, the leadership selects and recruit’s employees who have personal values that align to the organizational values so that they meet the mission of the organization.
The mission statement provides evidence that the organization contributes to the wellbeing of societies. The mission statement is people focused; it aims at meeting the needs of children; in this case, it directly contributes to the wellbeing of individuals and societies. In implementing the vision, the Gift for Life Foundation engages in projects that improve the lives of families; among such measures are educational programs that promote positive parenting (A Gift for Life Foundation, 2018
The Vision of Gift for Life Foundation
The vision of Gift for Life Foundation is seeing a nation where children are respected, filled with confidence, independent and are not denied of selfless affection (Gift for Life Foundation, 2018). The vision of the organization builds on the mission of the organization, which builds on its values. In this regard, the organization’s vision is aligned to its core values. The vision of the organization promotes leadership because the leaders strategize to meet its vision. Like its mission, the vision of Gift for Life Foundation contributes to the betterment of human wellbeing.
Stakeholders Involved in the American Red Cross
The Gift for Life Foundation has stakeholders who are the organization’s leaders, the employees, the government, the donors and the children served. The leaders and employees are stakeholders who are internal to the organization; they focus at meeting the organization’s mission by adhering to the stipulated core values. The government and donors are external to the organization; the government provides the regulatory framework while donors provide the necessary funds for the organization to carry on with its humanitarian activities. Lastly, the people in need are external to the organization because they are the recipients of the assistance and provide feedback about the humanitarian assistances
The leaders and employees contribute to the development of the organization’s strategic plan by providing information about the progress of activities being carried out. The government can contribute to strategic plan by highlighting the policies and regulations that the organization should adhere to. The children and parents who are the recipients of the organization’s services contribute to the strategic plan because they provide feedback about the existing programs and may highlight areas that need improvement.
Needs Assessment
Introduction
Needs assessment is a necessary step in the strategic plan because it directs and ensures a feasible and sustainable implementation of the strategic plan. Importantly, the needs assessment unveils the needs of the organization and any existing gaps between the organizational objectives and the expectations of the community it serves. As such, through needs assessment the organization can set priorities and determine any unmet expectations. Such information helps the organization to identify who should be targeted, how data should be gathered and how existing information should be used in the planning process; such information assists in setting a strategic plan. The paper explains the steps for conducting needs assessment, the stakeholders that will be conducted while conducting the needs assessment and the stakeholder survey concerning the societal issue.
Steps for Conducting Needs Assessment
The focus organization is Gift for Life Foundation that engages in promoting positive parenting and decreasing child abuse and neglect. The societal issue is sexual child abuse and neglect. In order to conduct the needs assessment for Gift for Life Foundation, five steps should are followed, they are; collecting general information about the social issue, which in this case is sexual child abuse and neglect. The second step is designing the plan for the needs assessment; during this step the target stakeholders are identified, the type of information needed is documented and the schedule for the assessment is unveiled. The third step is collecting data from the stakeholders, the fourth step is analyzing the data and the fifth step is analyzing data.
Stakeholders
During the needs assessment for the organization, the stakeholders that will be conducted are the organization’s staff, the board committee, volunteers and consultants. The organization’s staff will be conducted because they have first-hand information about the objectives of the organization and its operations. In this regard, the staff will provide information about the areas of organizational operation in relation to the societal issue by giving statistical and qualitative information (Reviere, 2013). The board committee has the broader picture of the organization compared to the staff. In this regard, the board will highlight existing strategic plan targets and whether they have been met or not; it will also explain reasons for not meeting the targets in the existing strategic plan. Consequently, the information gathered from the board committee will unveil any skill deficiencies the organization is facing while conducting its duties.
Consultants will be vital because they have broader knowledge about the societal issues and have workable and effective solutions to the problem. The information gathered from them will act as a benchmark for determining the gaps between the organization’s actions and the expected action in addressing the social issue (Reviere, 2013).
Stakeholder Survey
Gathering information requires use of appropriate methods data collection such as administration of questionnaires, conducting oral interviews and making observations. In the case of the social issue, questionnaires will be administered to the stakeholders. Information from the board committee and consultants will be collected by conducting oral interviews while information from the staff and target group will be collected by administering a fill in questionnaire and by conducting oral interview. The survey questions will include;
Questions for Administrative:
What are the goals of the organization in reducing the incidence of sexual child abuse and neglect?
The question seeks to determine the objectives of the organization in addressing the social issue
How many goals have you achieved since the initiation of the organization?
The question determines the measurable goals that the organization has achieved.
Questions for Board Committee:
Are the stakeholders such as the police and the judicial system supportive of your duties?
The question will have options such as supportive, very supportive and not supportive. The information collected by the question will help in planning about the inclusion of the other stakeholders in achieving the organizational goals
How many employees, volunteers and interns does the organization have?
The question inquires about the capability of the organization to address the social issue. The question is directed to the board committee.
Based on what you know about the organization, are there any identifiable skills gaps that you need to fill?
The question seeks to identify skill gaps that should be addressed
Questions for Employees:
In your opinion, what are the challenges in meeting the organizational goals in relation to sexual child abuse?
The answer to the question identifies the problems faced by the organization in meeting its goals
What measures should be initiated to address sexual child abuse and neglect?
The question focuses on evidence-based practices that can be adopted to reduce the incidence of sexual child abuse.
Are organizations effective in addressing sexual child abuse?
The question is directed to consultants:
Is the organization serving your interests?
The question is directed to the affected children, it seeks to find out if the organization is meeting its expectations
What areas do you think the organization should improve?
The question is directed to the staff and the target group. It gives feedback about the organization’s performance.
Strategic Issues at Gift of Life Foundation
The Gift of Life Foundation, which is the focus organization, was surveyed for needs assessment. The survey focused on stakeholders who included its employees, the board committee, consultants and the affected children, who are sexually abused. The intention of the needs assessment was to identify any existing gaps between the expectations of the community and the organizational objectives. It emerged from the needs assessment that the Gift of Life Foundation had some gaps in meeting its objectives; it also did not fully meet the expectations of the external stakeholders such as the children who were sexually abused. In cognizance of the outcomes of the needs assessment, the paper explains the SWOT analysis for the foundation; it explains the steps of conducting an environmental scan and identifies the internal and external conditions that may affect the implementation of the strategic plan.
SWOT Analysis for Gift of Life Foundation
Gift of Life Foundation has strengths and weaknesses; the organization also has opportunities for better serving the community and threats that may affect its service delivery.
Strengths of Gift of Life Foundation
Gift of Life Foundation has a wide network in the United States of America due to its presence in various states (Gift of Life Foundation, 2018). Its wide network enables the organization to reach many children who have been sexually abused. The foundation has many donors and volunteers that provide financial and other non-material support. Such support enables it to carry out its mission and meet some of its objectives. Importantly, Gift of Life Foundation collaborates with other humanitarian organizations to organize conferences on various social aspects such as dynamics of domestic violence. Such conferences educate the attendees on the effects of domestic violence on enhancing child sexual abuse. The strengths of the organization will be utilized when developing the strategic plan by formulating strategies that can effectively utilize the existence strengths.
Weaknesses of Gift of Life Foundation
The major weakness of Gift of Life Foundation is its reliance on donations to finance its operations. In this regard, in situations of hard economic times humanitarian organizations that rely on donations for sustenance are negatively affected. The negative impact of the weaknesses will be minimized in the strategic plan by providing more provisions for ways of getting resources sustain the foundation. Another weakness for this organization is having a strong volunteer base and inspiring leadership but can also lack someone who knows how to effectively budget and manage operational funds to exploit monies used to help the community.
Opportunities for Gift of Life Foundation
Gift of Life Foundation can encourage more donors to donate their financial assistance because donations to the foundation are tax-deductible. Encouraging donations is an opportunity for the foundation to offer its services to the many victims of child sexual abuse. In addition, the foundation has the opportunity of collaborating with other organizations supporting children and addressing child sexual abuse. Collaboration enables the organization to seek help where it has limited capacity. Moreover, the government may support the organization in its fight against child sexual abuse. The support gained from the government ion addressing the social issue increases the capacity of the organization in meeting the needs of the target community.
The opportunities will be incorporated in the strategic plan by including of them in the plan. For instance, the plan may include collaborating with five competitors in every state, therefore, as part of the tactic to meet the strategy, the reasons for and ways of collaboration will be highlighted.
Threats for Gift of Life Foundation
Threats can include laws, regulations, and even aggressive competition. These can include internal and external sources. The board directors can be divided in the direction of the nonprofit and disagreeing about how to spend funds. The volunteer force can also be divided with other people who take sides and petitioning for support. This can cause problems of not receiving help from the nonprofit community. The foundation is threated by the possibility of making donations non-tax-deductible. The situation will reduce the number of donors supporting the works of the organization. Furthermore, hard economic conditions may affect the amount of donations.
Steps for Conducting Environmental Scan
Environmental scan is a process of tracking occurrences and trends in the organization’s external and internal environment that lead to its success. The process of conducting an environmental scan entails conducting a situational analysis from secondary data. The step determines the areas of concern. The second step is carrying out situational analysis by collecting primary from stakeholders. The first two steps focus the scan by collecting useful and relevant information necessary in the formulation of the strategy (Conway, 2012). The third step is identifying individuals responsible for conducting environmental scan. During this step it is appropriate to identify a representative group from all areas of the organization. The fourth step is starting the scan by setting up a classification system based on the STEEP framework; that is social, technological, economic, environmental and political. The findings in each category are recorded for analysis purposes (Conway, 2012). The fifth step is analyzing the scanning output; the analysis step considers the trends that emerge from the scan and the strategic issues that need to be addressed.
Internal Conditions that Might Impact the Implementation of Strategic Plan
Among the internal conditions at Gift of Life Foundation that might impact the implementation of the strategic plan is the difference in existing priorities in the organization and the expected priorities in the strategic plan. The differences in the priorities may be ameliorated by sequencing the strategy in a manner that it does not undermine the existing priorities of the foundation.
In addition, lack of resources may affect the implementation of some strategies that have financial implications to the organization. Lack of resources may be addressed by appropriately allocating resources based on value contribution. Furthermore, resistance to change by the organization’s staff impedes effective implementation of strategies. Resistance from employees may be addressed by involving employees in the formulation of the strategic plan so that they understand the rationale, importance and effects of the strategy on the overall organization.
External Conditions that Might Impact the Implementation of Strategic Plan
The foundation is affected by the existing public policy; therefore, one external condition that might affect the implementation of the strategic plan is the changes in public policy. Public policy may have negative affect on the strategic plan if the plan is heavily reliant on the existing policy. The change in public policy may be addressed by making the strategic plan align with the new public policy.
Working with Competitors
The organization has competitors offering some of the services that it offers, however, in line with dealing with child sexual abuse, the foundation has none or one competitor is some states. Among the competitors are International Rescue Committee-IRC and The Survivors Trust. The competitors. However, the competitors are not antagonistic in achieving the objectives of the organization. To effectively implement the strategic plan, the competitors will be involved during the implementation so that the tactics employed in achieving the strategic plan are collaborative. For instance, to meet the needs of children who have been sexually abused, the competitors will be notified so that in case the cases increase beyond the scope of the foundation, other children may be referred to the competitor organizations. The aim in the collaboration is to address the social problem. In addition, the organization will work with competitors to organize conferences that address issues about child sexual abuse.
Developing Technical Elements
Introduction
The development of technical elements entails developing the strategic goals, the specific strategies, establishing the indictors of success and formulating the performance targets. The paper is the first part of the constructing the technical elements; specifically, it focuses on the development of strategic goals, formulation of the strategies for implementing the goals. It also addresses issues of accountability in the Gift for Life Foundation.
Strategic Goals
The strategic goals for Gift for Life Foundation are to increase their humanitarian services in all states in America and expand to other countries. Secondly, to broaden and increase its sources of revenue, and thirdly to enhance its collaboration with organizations with similar objectives and ameliorate the problem of child sexual abuse in the world. The three strategic goals focus on globalization of the foundation’s functions in relation to addressing sexual child abuse, the foundations revenue sources and lastly, the foundation’s alliances with other organizations.
In line with globalization, the foundation will increase its services in all state and expand to other countries to curb sexual child abuse. Globalization as a strategic goal impacts on the foundation’s revenue collection and expenditure. Furthermore, in relation to formation of alliances and collaboration with other organizations, such alliances complement the organization’s activities in relation to solving sexual child abuse. It also acts as a growth tactic because it enables the organization to expand its area of operations by forming horizontal integration, which creates value to clients. Collaboration increases the versatility and increases the rate of globalization. Furthermore, in situations where there are human resource capacity challenges, alliances help to solve such challenges because of access to a wider pool of human resource capacity that can address the various challenges faced by children who have been sexually abused and challenges of addressing the problem in the communities.
Strategies for Implementing the Goal
The implementing the goals requires appropriate strategies. The goals of the organization are to promote positive parenting, decrease child neglect and child abuse (Gift for Life Foundation, 2018). Ultimately, the organization aims at promoting independence, confidence and life-long learning in children. Based on the highlighted goals, the foundation can achieve the goals by initiating strategic measures such as increasing collaboration with other organizations like planned parenthood, The Resource Center for Parents and children, and Hearts for Families that focus on parenting. Such collaboration helps the organization to address sexual child abuse by educating parents on how to educate their children and the protection of their children against sexual child abuse. In addition, the organization can increase its revenue base so that it collects enough financial resources that can help it to organize parenting conferences.
In relation to decreasing child neglect and abuse, the organization will educate the public about dangers of child neglect and abuse and encourage the public to report any case of child neglect or abuse. The organization will also provide public and private classes to parents, so they are able to recognize the warning signs of sexual child abuse. In addition, the organization can collaborate with other humanitarian and health organization that work closely with families to identify cases of child neglect or abuse and report the cases to the organization for remedial action.
Accountability
The strategic plan will be executed and monitored by foundation’s managers. They must complete the execution of the plan’s objectives and the monitoring happening periodically of the implementation progress and changes in the business community. In this way, the foundation’s managers maintain an accountability for meeting their commitments and the ability to make changes to the existed plans as the community changes. Specifically, in relation to child sexual abuse, the manager in charge of child abuse and neglect will be mandated to execute and monitor the implementation of the strategic plan. The manager’s accountability will be tracked by evaluating the performance of the organization in relation to the stipulated performance targets during a specific time period.
Clients will help in accountability be providing feedback about the nature of services received, based on the feedback, the senior managers can then assess if the organization is meeting its performance measures.
An Action Plan
An Action Plan for Gift for Life Foundation
Aims: Reducing infant mortality, promoting positive parenting, and decreasing child neglect and abuse
| Action/Timeline | Objective | Responsible Parties |
| The objective of the task is to carry out an effective needs assessment of the organization. This is important as it informs and directs a feasible and sustainable implementation of the strategic plan. | Members of staff will design data collection methods and analyze it. The board will review the data collected and make inferences. |
| The aim of the planning phase is to ensure that every party is informed about its responsibility in whole project. Planning will also enable effective allocation of resources. It will also put in place a monitoring system that will ensure that performance is in line with goals. | The board, consultants, and volunteers will be involved in planning. The board will be expected to monitor the whole planning process. |
| The objective of this process is to ensure that all resources available are exploited when reaching for the set goals. | Board members, consultants and members of staff will be responsible for the activity. |
| The objective of this is to ensure that work is done in line with the plan. It will also ensure that resources are utilized optimally. | The board, workers, and volunteers will implement the plan |
| The objective of this activity is to ensure that the overall goals and objectives have been met. Also, shortcoming experienced and recommendations for addressing them will be put in the report. | A section of members of staff and some volunteers will carry out this activity and provide a report. |
References
Badawy, M., Ahmed, A. E., Idress, A. M, Hefny, H. A & Hossan, S. (2016). A Survey on Exploring Key Performance Indicators. Quality and Quantity, 4(1) pp. 46-58. Doi: 10.1016/j.fcij.2016.04.001
Conway, M (2012). Doing Environmental Scanning an Overview Guide. Web. Accessed on 2/1/2019
Gift for Life Foundation (2018). For Families: Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention. Web. Accessed on 12/12/2018.
Homan, M. S. (2016). Promoting community change: Making it happen in the real world (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage.
Reviere, R (2013). Needs Assessment: A Creative and Practical Guide for Social Scientists. New York: Taylor & Francis Publishers
