An illustration of cog wheels with icons relating to construction projects in their centre.

B2C2 Expansion Toolkit

Module 1 - Part 3 - Strategic Planning

Back to Part 2
Continue to Part 4
A chart laying out the difference between business plans and strategic plans
The difference between a business plan and a strategic plan. Click to download a PDF.

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning:

  • assists in creating and aligning the future direction of an organization,
  • helps define the steps, set expectations, propel action, and provide focus on how to achieve goals,
  • is a collaborative process with all stakeholders to:
    • review current practices,
    • analyze the external landscape,
    • develop goals,
    • create work plans,
    • set timelines and,
    • implement dates to review progress. 

Strategic planning can provide immediate benefits including those listed below.

  • allows you to review practices and milestones achieved,
  • staff and team achievements are highlighted
  • helps to define a vision for the future
  • helps to predict and adapt to changes
  • pulls your team together and supports collaboration amongst team and stakeholders
  • instills a sense of shared responsibility
  • sets expectations of team, stakeholders and community

 

Who to involve in the process?

Engage an impartial person to lead your strategic plan process. Gather information, thoughts, and opinions from stakeholders about your organization.

Internal stakeholders

  • Board of Directors 
  • Leadership team 
  • Staff 
  • Families 

External stakeholders

  • Community
  • SSM/Ministry/Municipality
  • Partners in the community

 

Gathering Opinions and Insights

Use your stakeholders to determine the general direction for your organization. Ensure that you understand and appreciate the differing perspectives of people in your organization. Ensure that your strategic plan reflects a consensus and diversity of opinion. 

There are some ways to get input from different groups and you’ll have to decide the methods that work best for you. 

  • Surveys
  • Visioning exercises 
  • Smaller group workshops (see some workshop ideas here)
    • SWOT analysis,
    • visioning exercises,
    • mind mapping and
    • stakeholder mapping 
  • Competitive analyses, market research
  • Your environmental scan
  • Gather any other relevant data or information important for your organization. 

 

Intensive Process with Core Group

Next you need to actually write the strategic plan.

  • find a smaller group of 5-10 people to write a strategic plan
  • use a neutral person as a facilitator.
  • have a concentrated amount of time to debate and make final decisions.
  • this is a collaborative face-to-face process; don’t use one person to write it, or to edit it over email. 

 

At the end of this process, you will have a strategic plan that can chart the direction of your organization over the next 5 years.

More details
A completed Strategic Plan
An example of a Strategic Plan. Click to download a PDF.
The steps below outline the basic process for writing a strategic plan document.  
  1. Write your mission statement
  2. Determine your goals
  3. Decide on your tasks
  4. Measure Success (or failure)
  5. Revisit Your Plan
More details

DOWNLOAD Creating Your Strategic Plan

Get detailed instructions in our activity document “Creating Your Strategic Plan”

As a part of the Toolkit, you will be working on exercises, writing, figuring and in the end creating a plan for your expansion project. 

Throughout the module, in the sections called “Activities”, we will have worksheets, exercises and activities to help you create that plan. 

A tiny thumbnail image of the document "Activity: Creating Your Strategic Plan "

Activity 1: Creating Your Strategic Plan

This quick instruction sheet explains, step-by-step how to write a strategic plan.

Download the Creating Your Strategic Plan instruction sheet

A completed Strategic Plan

Activity 2: Example Strategic Plan

Take a look at the strategic plan of our model centre to see an example of what a strategic plan might look like.

Download the Example Strategic Plan

A tiny thumbnail image of the fillable template for your strategic plan.

Activity 3: Your Strategic Plan

You can download and fill in this template to create your organization’s strategic plan.

Download the Strategic Plan Template

Part 1 - Getting Started With Your Board

Part 2 - Information Gathering

Part 3 - Strategic Planning

Part 4 - Assessing Risks

Part 5 - Collaborations and Relationships

Back to Part 2
Continue to Part 4
Module 1 Progress
Amount Completed 60%

Engage an impartial person to lead your strategic plan process. This person will lead discussions, gather information, write reports and provide guidance throughout the process. 

Before getting down to the goal setting part, you will need to involve key stakeholders to gather information, thoughts, and opinions. Stakeholders to include might be:

Internal stakeholders

  • Board of Directors 
  • Leadership team 
  • Staff 
  • Families 

External stakeholders

  • Community
  • SSM/Ministry/Municipality
  • Partners in the community

With your internal stakeholders (and perhaps external stakeholders too), you should work out a general direction for your organization. You don’t need to ask everyone for the details of how they want the organization to operate, but you do want to ensure that you understand and appreciate the differing perspectives of people in your organization. You want to ensure that your strategic plan reflects a consensus, not just what a few members of the Board of Directors want to do. 

There are some ways to get input from different groups and you’ll have to decide the methods that work best for you. 

  • Surveys
  • Visioning exercises with large groups
  • Smaller group workshops that include SWOT analysis, visioning exercises, mind mapping and stakeholder mapping (see resources for some examples).
  • Competitive analyses, market research
  • Your environmental scan
  • Gather any other relevant data or information important for your organization. 

Once you have all of this information and you’ve had a chance to digest and understand it, you need to find a smaller group of 5-10 people who are willing to work together to build a strategic plan with one neutral person as a facilitator. It is best to have a concentrated amount of time to hash this out (a half-day or a day-long gathering), to debate and hear other people’s perspectives and make final decisions. Don’t attempt to have one person decide what the strategic plan should say, or to work it out over email. This is a collaborative process. 

At the end of this process, you will have a strategic plan that can chart the direction of your organization over the next 5 years.

Close
The steps below outline the basic process for writing a strategic plan document.
  1. Write your mission statement Your mission statement announces your overarching purpose. It is a brief statement that includes the 5 Ws of your organization (who, what, where, when and, most importantly, why)
  2. Determine your goals In this context, your goals are not exactly the same as your mission. Often people get mixed up between goals and mission. Or tasks and goals. Goals are specific aims that relate to your mission.
  3. Decide on your tasks Look at your goals, how are you going to achieve them? Tasks are actions that are even more specific than the goals. This isn’t just what you are going to tackle to achieve your mission, it’s exactly how you are going to tackle it.
  4. Measuring Success (or failure) The next part is to identify ways to measure the success or failure of each goal. The measurements should be for your future board of directors who will be revisiting the strategic plan in the future. They will have to determine how successful this plan has been and if the organization should change its strategies or should continue with the same goals and tasks.
  5. Revisit Your Plan Your strategic plan is a living document and should be revisited once a year, so that if circumstances change, you can respond and continue on with working towards your vision.

DOWNLOAD Creating Your Strategic Plan

Get detailed instructions in our activity document "Creating Your Strategic Plan"

Close

Subscribe to our informative newsletter

Find out about child care expansion news, how B2C2 can help you, and everything about child care expansion in Ontario.

* indicates required