ProInspire Strategy Update 2: Strategy Process Overview
This is an exciting year for ProInspire, as we have embarked on a strategy process to define our bold goal and set the course for the organization’s future. We were inspired to think about our bold goal by Community Wealth Partners, which wrote: “We challenge change agents to shift their attention from modest goals that provide short-term relief to bold goals that, while harder to achieve, aim to realize significant, lasting impact at the population-level.”
While ProInspire has evaluated our strategy every 2 years since the organization started in 2009, this is the first time we are investing significant time to think critically about how we approach our work. During the organization’s five-year anniversary in 2014, we conducted a series of focus groups and interviews with our stakeholders to understand challenges and opportunities to achieving our mission. This research led us to believe that we should be doing more to achieve the impact we want to have in the social sector.
The strategy process is taking place from March 2015 to February 2016. We are conducting this in conjunction with our work as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Social Sector Talent Pipelines Strategy & Learning Lab. We plan to post updates about the strategy process on our blog, and please reach out to ProInspire staff with any questions or input related to the process.
Our strategy process is broken down into four phases, and involves multiple stakeholders.
Strategy Process
Phase 1: Internal Assessment
Timeline: March, April, May 2015
Goal: Define our major strengths and assets that we can build on when developing strategies for future impact
Phase 2: External Assessment
Timeline: June, July, August 2015
Goal: Understand the external landscape, significant trends, and our current positioning in the marketplace
Phase 3: Strategy Definition
Timeline: September, October, November 2015
Goal: Define our bold goal and what success will look like when we achieve it
Phase 4: Implementation Planning
Timeline: December 2015, January, February 2016
Goal: Evaluate our current programs and partnerships within our new strategies, identify resources and capacities needed to implement new strategies
Key Stakeholders
We are fortunate to have some very talented people helping us with the strategy process. Kerrien Rollins Suarez is serving as our Strategy Advisor throughout the process, and she is leading the External Assessment phase. Sandy Stonesifer did a great job leading our Internal Assessment and conducted interviews with internal stakeholders, including staff, partners, alumni, and Board members.
We have three different groups that are playing a key role in the strategy process:
- ProInspire Strategy Steering Committee: The Strategy Steering Committee includes a cross-section of ProInspire stakeholders, including staff, Board members, partners, and alumni.
- ProInspire Strategy Planning Committee: The Strategy Planning Committee includes ProInspire alumni who are serving as analysts in our strategy process.
- ProInspire Board of Directors: The Board that is responsible for governance of ProInspire.
ProInspire Strategy Steering Committee
Rafael Alfonzo, Entrepreneur (ProInspire Board Chair)
Jenn Bellamy, National Children’s Center (M4S Alum)
Elisa Chen, FHI 360 (ProInspire Board Member, Fellowship Alum)
Valerie Faillace, KIPP Foundation (Bay Area Advisory Council)
Nora Gardner, McKinsey (M4S Advisory Council)
Monisha Kapila, ProInspire Staff
Gene Kunde, ProInspire Staff
Thomas Nelson, Share Our Strength (Board Member, ProInspire Partner)
Kerrien Rollins-Suarez, Community Wealth Partners (Strategy Advisor)
Abigail Stewart-Kahn, SFCAPC (ProInspire Partner)
Justin Steele, Google.org (M4S Advisory Council, ProInspire Partner)
Michelle Tafel, College Summit (ProInspire Partner)
Yvonne Vargas, Year Up NCR (M4S Alum, ProInspire Partner)
Christine Wang, Haas Jr. Fund (Fellowship Alum)
ProInspire Strategy Planning Committee
Britni Stinson, 2012 ProInspire Fellow
Emily Hsu, 2013 ProInspire Fellow
Haley Fletcher, 2014 M4S Fellow
Jessica Wong, 2014 ProInspire Fellow
Kiara Walters, 2013 ProInspire Fellow
Liz Jimenez, 2014 ProInspire Fellow
Mark Wilson, 2015 M4S Fellow
We have completed the internal assessment and are now in the external assessment phase. Our next blog post will be about some key findings from the internal assessment.