Originally published on Blackbaud's ENGAGE Blog >>

Over the course of my career, I have sat through a lot of strategic planning meetings. Not one of them was transformative.

Even in rooms full of smart, committed people who genuinely cared about their organizations, the process was usually a slog—long, circular conversations, occasionally contentious, that produced sheets of peel-away notes, stickies, word clouds, and mind maps that someone’s assistant eventually typed up and (maybe) emailed around.

Sometimes a retreat produced a “finished” document, but more often it ended as a meeting everyone was simply relieved to finish. And when a planning process feels that empty, it rarely produces the kind of shared conviction board members need to serve as credible ambassadors and fundraisers.

The link between strategic planning and fundraising is more direct than many organizations acknowledge: Board members raise money more effectively when they understand the strategy, believe in it, and can speak about it with confidence. Donors are more likely to trust organizations that can clearly explain what they stand for, where they are headed, and what they hope to achieve. The real problem arises when there’s a disconnect between the plan and the action.

I have seen this pattern in the CEO seat, in the boardroom, and arriving as a strategic planning consultant from the outside. Across organizational types, sizes, and sectors, the frustration is remarkably consistent. Most leaders know something needs to change, yet many organizations still repeat planning processes that produce paperwork instead of clarity, alignment, and momentum.

When I became CEO of the Chicago Botanic Garden, the previous strategic plan was due for revision. My first instinct was to hire a consultant—surely someone from the outside would bring perspective and expertise I didn’t have. We brought one in, commissioned surveys, and sat through a number of meetings before I reached an uncomfortable conclusion: The consultant didn’t actually know what our organization needed.

But I did.

The board had hired me for exactly that purpose. Outsourcing our team’s judgment to someone tangentially familiar with our work was not going to produce the plan we needed.

So, I took the work back. I went on vacation and wrote the skeleton of the plan myself, then spent the following months bringing it back to senior staff, board committees, and every major stakeholder I could reach. The result—Keep Growing—is still referenced in our sector more than a decade later. It helped us raise millions of dollars, and we shared it publicly as an open-source model for any organization to adapt. I still hear from leaders who used it as their foundation.

Its power did not come from the act of committing it to paper at a strategy meeting. Its power came from how we used it once it came into existence.

Strategy Lives in the Decisions You Make Every Day

We were determined not to let Keep Growing sit on a shelf, so we brought it into everything—staff meetings, volunteer gatherings, open houses for members and donors. We posted it on our website. We used it as the reference point for every significant decision the organization faced, including some that no planning process could have anticipated.

One summer morning, just before dawn, we lost power across the Garden’s entire 385-acre campus. A wide outage had swept through Chicago’s North Shore region at the height of our busiest season, and temperatures were expected to climb all day. My vice president and I had to make a fast decision with incomplete information: close for the day, or open the gates for our customers?

We went back to the plan. Who were we really here to serve?

In our plan, we had chosen the word “customer” deliberately, even though it was not common nonprofit language, because it forced us to think concretely about every person who depended on us—families with children in summer camp, seniors who came for fresh air and shade, gardeners, researchers, tourists, students. Our mission was to bring people and plants together for beauty, healing, education, and refuge.

Could we still do that without electricity? We believed we could.

We opened, and several thousand people came through the Garden that day. A number of senior centers throughout the area also had lost power, and their residents arrived by bus to spend the day in a cool, shaded outdoor space. The thanks that came in afterward were genuine. The plan had given us a framework for making a sound decision quickly—and the result strengthened the organization’s relationship with the community it existed to serve. 

This not only generated more feelings of goodwill but also increased revenue through membership retention and annual fund participation.

What the Data Is Telling Us

A challenging fundraising environment makes strategic planning more important than ever.

• According to Giving USA 2024, total charitable giving reached historic levels in nominal dollars, but inflation-adjusted giving has experienced periods of contraction, and individual giving as a percentage of overall philanthropy continues its long-term decline.

• The Fundraising Effectiveness Project reports donor attrition rates hovering around 42– 43% annually.

At the same time, institutional funders are raising expectations. Grant guidelines and reporting requirements increasingly emphasize measurable outcomes, alignment with a theory of change, and demonstrated organizational capacity. Corporate philanthropy has shifted toward strategic partnerships tied to brand alignment. They demand measurable results.

Donors, too, expect clarity about where you are headed, how you will get there, and what their investment will accomplish. A strong strategic plan, actively in use, is how you answer those questions with confidence.

Strategic Planning Is a Governance Responsibility—and a Fundraising Responsibility

BoardSource identifies setting strategic direction as a core responsibility of nonprofit boards, alongside fiduciary oversight and executive support. In practice, this means more than approving a plan at a board meeting. It means that the board and executive leadership build the plan together, stand behind it, and use it as the foundation for major decisions.

During my years on the Wellesley College board and as board president of the Arts Club of Chicago, I saw how much clearer the path forward becomes when a board genuinely owns the strategy—and how complicated things get when strategy is treated as a staff function the board simply ratifies. Boards are most effective as fundraising partners when they help shape the direction they are now asked to advocate for.

When board and leadership are aligned around a plan they built together, fundraising becomes straightforward. Board members are better ambassadors because they believe in the direction. Advancement teams can build a coherent case for support because priorities are clear. Donors can see that the organization knows where it’s going.

Without that foundation, fundraising becomes harder. Advancement teams are asked to raise money for shifting or loosely defined priorities. Revenue planning becomes unstable. Donor confidence weakens. Sometimes executive turnover follows when expectations were never clearly defined. Donors sense the lack of coherence, even when no one names it directly.

Why Plans Fail—and What to Do Instead

Most plans fail because they are not actively used. They are approved, shared, and then gradually disappear from day-to-day decisions. The reasons are varied: unclear ownership, goals that were never resourced, leadership transitions that interrupt continuity, and no regular rhythm for tracking progress.

Sometimes the issue is scope. A plan with 12 priorities is too many. Advancement teams cannot build a compelling case for support when everything is the priority. At other times, goals are adopted without realistic resource alignment, and fundraising teams are left to retrofit revenue strategies after the fact.

A few things that consistently help:

• Assign clear ownership. Every priority should have a named owner and a reporting cadence.

• Integrate the plan into operations. If the strategy only appears at board meetings, it is not part of how the organization runs.

• Make it public. Transparency creates accountability. Donors respond to it.

• Include advancement leadership in the planning process. Fundraising strategy should grow from the plan, not be added later.

A 6-Phase Strategy Roadmap

Strategic planning that strengthens fundraising follows a sequence, and the sequence matters.

Phase 1: Clarify purpose and scope. Executive leadership and the board chair need to be aligned on why the plan is needed, how it connects to fundraising, and who will guide the process. A process without shared expectations will stall early. A facilitator can be helpful, but the plan itself must come from inside the organization.

Phase 2: Assess your environment and gather input. Review sector trends, peer benchmarks, and your own data. Then go further—talk to staff, donors, community members, and partners. When these perspectives are reflected in the plan, advancement leaders can speak with greater confidence.

Phase 3: Define three to five strategic priorities. Pair each with measurable objectives. Hold the line at three to five. Focus is one of the most valuable things you can give your advancement team.

Phase 4: Test for feasibility. Examine what each priority will require in resources, staff capacity, and fundraising. Advancement leadership plays a key role in translating priorities into viable philanthropic opportunities.

Phase 5: Move into implementation. Assign ownership, establish timelines, define metrics, and align budgets. This is what separates a plan from a document.

Phase 6: Monitor and adapt. Build a regular rhythm—quarterly staff reviews, board updates tied to milestones—that will keep strategy active. Fundraising efforts should evolve alongside program progress.

Make Strategy Visible

A strategic plan remains a fundraising asset when it is visible, embedded in the organization, and revisited consistently. When it appears in board agendas, informs staff evaluations, and connects to revenue projections, it becomes part of how the organization operates.

For organizations that need additional support, planning platforms designed for nonprofits—such as PlanPerfect—can help track progress, integrate financial projections, and give leadership and boards the visibility they need to stay aligned.

One Last Thing

A strategic plan is not proof that you have everything figured out. However, having one shows that you have thought carefully about what you are trying to do, who you are trying to serve, and how you will measure progress. It also shows that the board and staff have agreed on a direction.

When that strategic plan is alive in the organization—when staff can quote it, when board members can stand behind it as ambassadors, when donors can see it guiding how you operate—fundraising gets easier.