Strategy and Plan

Strategy vs Plan?

A strategy is your overall goal while a plan is a to do list for achieving your goal. Your strategy and plan should outline your goals, sets a map for how to achieve them, and build your opportunity pipeline for bringing your campaign to fruition.

Strategizing and planning lay the foundation of your campaign by defining its purpose, messaging, goals, strategy map, and outcomes and answering these 4 questions:

Why am I doing SLA and what do I want to accomplish?

Where am I starting and what does the landscape look like?

What does success look like & how will I get there?

How will I know I am succeeding in my approach?

VISION, MISSION, & DESTINATION

ENTRY POINT & ASSESSMENT

SETTING GOALS & MAPPING SUCCESS

CHECKPOINTS & EVALUATION

Step 1: Set Your Vision & Craft Your Mission ("why") Statement

DEFINING YOUR VISION

Your vision is a (series of) statement(s) that maps out your purpose & desired end goal; informs your goals & outcomes; and frames your campaign's messaging. A clear vision aligns your efforts & unifies others behind a common goal, and drives increased efficiency.

Within your vision, take a moment to set your fundraising goal - how much do you want your team to fundraise by the end of the 6-week competition? Most students set a goal of anywhere between $25,000 - $50,000, and typical team fundraising average is around $30,000.

Check out the fundraising benchmarks and available benefits on the SLA Basics page to help determine where you want to land. At this point, you're just setting an initial goal, but you will revisit and revise your final goal at the end of your strategic planning.

When defining your vision for your SLA campaign, ask yourself:

"What do you hope to accomplish through your campaign?"
"What would success look like for you?"
"How much do you want to fundraise?"
"What are you advocating for and why is this important to you?"

YOUR MISSION (OR YOUR “WHY”) STATEMENT

Your mission statement (also called your "why statement") is THE most important part of your campaign - it is the crux of every single pitch and conversation that you will have throughout this program!

Your why statement states what YOUR specific reasons for advocating for the mission are, and should clearly express how you specifically relate to the mission and why what you're doing matters. It paints a picture of why you're choosing to advocate, what you're hoping to bring to light or change, and should allow prospective supporters to place themselves in your shoes and understand why they need to help you.

A good why statement acts as the precursor to a call to action, where it allows you to showcase your passion, inspire/uplift others, and rally your community to act around your goals. Your why statement is what will drive others to get involved and support you - your passion and reasons for getting involved will move/persuade others to support you.

Your why statement should answer the following questions:

"What are you advocating for and why is this important to you?"
"How do you specifically relate to the organization's mission?"
"Why do you think other people should care about getting involved?"
"What change do you hope your advocacy will bring for others?"

A good why statement:

Focuses on the mission & how you relate to it
Paints a picture / tells a story
Inspires team members, donors, and other influential community members to invest emotionally and buy into your efforts

Check out these why statements from previous SLA students:

"I am participating in SLA and setting a goal to raise $50,000 in honor of my grandmother, who was the first person in her family to go to college. She worked 2 jobs when she was in high school so she could afford to put herself through college in order to give her family a better life. She taught me the value of education and her story inspires me to make a difference by raising money to provide scholarships and opportunities to those who need it most."

"Inspired by my grandmothers, a math teacher, preschool teacher, and an elementary librarian, a focus on education was always valuable to me. I started my pursuit of knowledge at a young age, my passion for reading insatiable, and as I grew older, I realized that everyone should have accessible education, no matter your circumstances. Through creating my own club, Chapters for Change, at my high school, I was able to realize the real, tangible help I could provide for others, supplying unhoused children with an educational and creative outlet. I joined the Amalfi Foundation to further this mission of supporting disadvantaged populations while fostering my personal growth in helping others. Synthesizing with both Amalfi Foundation’s Local Community Development Initiative as well as their Primary School Initiative, I believe that it is of utmost importance that we give underserved communities the resources they deserve in order to thrive, whether they are citizens in the greater Los Angeles area, or children of the Maasai tribe in Tanzania."

"Education is a cause I actively care about and it is something I work with passionately. Education is what I have to owe a lot of my life and my privileges to, as the daughter of two immigrants, who were able to get to where they are due to making the most of their educational opportunities, and who tried to make sure to give us the same. I would like to work with the Amalfi Foundation to really make an impact, and work towards actually contributing towards the cause on a larger scale."

Step 2: Assess the Landscape & Analyze Your Scope

"What potential opportunities do I have to make my vision a reality? What challenges do I see that could get in the way of my success?"

Now that you have an idea of what you want to accomplish and how much you want to fundraise with your goals, analyze your internal and external environments to get a comprehensive understanding of where you're starting from and to provide insight into the future potential of your campaign.

Do research into who is in your network & how they relate to the various SLA fundraising approaches.

Think about your friends and their parents, sports teams, places of worship, neighbors, online communities, extracurricular activities, & volunteer communities.

Begin identifying opportunities by asking yourself, your family, and friends the following questions:

What communities / networks are you and your family connected to? What industries do your family and friends work in?
Who can open doors to help you access specific opportunities?
What high impact ask opportunities are available to you through your immediate network (think about business leaders, potential Charitybuzz donors, community leaders & major gifts)?

As a family, use these brainstorming guides to help you build out your "opportunity pipeline" (a list of potential ideas you could go for):

Community Brainstorm (use to build your team and your peer-to-peer lists)
High Impact Ask Brainstorm (Corporate Sponsorship, Major Gift, Charitybuzz & Silent Auction)

Step 3: Establish Your Goals & Map Your Strategy

"What impact do you want to make & how much do you want to fundraise?"

"How will you define progress and measure success?"

"What goals will move you closer to your vision?"

The first step is to establish your fundraising goal - how much do you hope to raise at the end of this program?

Revisit the first step where you set a vision for the impact you want to make and set an initial fundraising goal. Use the insight gained from your SWOT to make an informed decision & set a fundraising goal for your team.

You will use your team's fundraising goal in every conversation you have!

Align your vision, mission, and strategy by setting a fundraising goal:

Keep your vision & impact on AF's mission in mind
Dream big
Take calculated risks by using your SWOT analysis as your guide
Consider the SLA milestones & rewards

Now that you have your ultimate fundraising goal, it's time to break it down into achievable and measured steps -

Dividing your fundraising goal into strategic objectives (or sub-goals) influences how and where a you and your team's energy and resources are used, and provides concrete objectives that will help keep you focused and motivated.

Setting Strategic Objectives

Break your team's fundraising goal up into smaller objectives that are actionable, measurable & quantifiable

What would I like to accomplish by the end of this program?

Create a timeline for each objective that sets quantifiable targets for how much of the goal will be met and by when

What would you like your weekly progress to look like?

Objectives to Consider:

Amount of people on your team
Amount of team members that have raised $1,500 / $3,000 / $5,000+
Amount of sponsorship meetings held
Amount of Charitybuzz donors
Amount of people on Comms Plan (min 150 people on P2P list required for Candidates)

Step 4: Conduct SWOT Analysis & Evaluate Progress

Conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a method to assess your campaign's competitive positioning and will help you to map out your goals and strategy. It takes into account internal factors (strengths & weaknesses) & external factors (opportunities & threats) to provide a comprehensive overview of your strategy.

Using the Strategic Objectives & Timeline you built in Step 3, you will continuously monitor your success by regularly reviewing your progress compared to the benchmarks & milestones you set in your sub-goals. A good strategic plan is regularly revisited and evolves and shifts as new opportunities and threats arise.

Internal Factors

Strengths & Weaknesses

Provides assessment of capability before developing priorities, outcomes, and action plans. In your control & build on strengths and overcome weaknesses.

External Factors

Opportunities & Threats

Things that are out of your control and are comprised of social, economic, person, technological and other factors to identify gaps in strategy & opportunities for growth and improvement, and for barriers to success,

Strengths

Describe what an initiative excels at and what sets you apart from the competition (ie a strong brand, large / loyal donor base, strong team, unique opportunities, etc)

Where are we doing well & what strengths do you see coming across campaign so far?
Can be the diversity of your team, your big family, your church network, your grandparents network, etc
How do these strengths give you a strategic advantage?
How can you capitalize on these strengths? Or what do you need to do to fortify them?

Opportunities

Favorable external factors that can give you a competitive advantage (ie a team member's access to prospective high impact donors; booms in specific industries)

Looking at your weaknesses, where do you see opportunity to reframe it to an opportunity? What do you need to do or who do you have to talk to to make this happen?
Also - What do you not have immediately secured, but you see a lot of potential?

Weaknesses

Stop an initiative from performing at its optimum level, areas where you need to improve to remain competitive (ie weak mission statement, small team, etc)

Weaknesses in a SWOT are typically areas where you anticipate challenges but that are in your general control
All people and campaigns have weaknesses and challenges – what are yours?
Examples can be a smaller network of team members to choose from, a smaller community to reach out to

Threats

External factors that have the potential to harm your campaign (ie economic decline, competition from other SLA candidates in your community)

Threats are things outside of your immediate control or are factors in your external environment that have the potential to jeopardize your success
This can include economic downturns, difficulties facing a specific industry, or community calendars

You Have a Plan! What's next?

Congratulations! You've created your Strategic Plan! Your marketing plan & communication plan work in tandem. Both are crucial elements for defining your campaign's messaging and effectively delivering it to your target audience.

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