Event Date: 04.08.2021
Time: 2-3:30pm
Part of Mass Cultural Council’s Recover, Rebuild, Renew Series
None of our 2020s looked anything like what we expected. Who could have predicted covid, shut downs, the recession, remote working and learning, and overnight changes to our service delivery, demand, and business models? While many organizations are having a natural instinct to abandon planning since their last plans felt irrelevant, this is the worst time to abandon planning. How can you help your board and leadership team take stock of the lessons learned from 2020 and prepare for your next year, even with what feel like so many unknowns? What conversations will be helpful to have now and which will only add to the feelings of stress? How can we use planning to guide our decision-making in times of change and uncertainty?
Outcomes: At the end of this session, participants will be able to understand the goals of strategic planning and the strategic planning process, explore why abandoning strategic planning is the wrong response to 2021, understand how scenario planning can help with addressing open questions, understand how planning can guide decision-making in times of change and uncertainty, understand why success and failure of a strategic plan is based, not on what is decided in the strategic planning process, but on how the process is set up., learn the four critical questions to answer before you start, and explore how strategic planning during the covid pandemic and the economic recession is both different and better than what we did prior to these dual crises.
Firm: Paper Crane Associates, Westford, MA
Content Expert: Sarah Glatt
Sarah is the Founder of Paper Crane Associates, a woman-owned and Massachusetts-based consulting firm. She has spent more than fifteen years in the nonprofit sector as a consultant and coach helping to support sustainability and change within organizations and in the world. She works with nonprofit leaders who are launching, growing, or pivoting their mission-driven organizations. She helps them build sustainable, impactful organizations by putting out today’s fires, planning for tomorrow, and achieving their world-changing visions. Her teaching and coaching support nonprofit leaders in strengthening their own and their organization’s work.
Sarah brings a deep understanding of the nonprofit sector and philanthropic sector in general and the nonprofit cultural sector in particular. Prior to launching Paper Crane Associates, Sarah was a consultant at TDC for seven and a half years where she was deeply immersed in the leading thinking about financial benchmarks, capitalization, business/funding models in the nonprofit and nonprofit cultural sectors, and the translation of that thinking into practice with client organizations.
Beyond her strategy work directly with nonprofits, Sarah regularly teaches courses and workshops for nonprofit leaders, staff, volunteers, board members, and community members. She designed, launched, and now teaches the Nonprofit Management Certificate within the Continuing Education & Training Division at Middlesex Community College. She recently joined University of California Riverside’s University Extension Professional Studies where she will be teaching courses in nonprofit management and entrepreneurship to a national and international audience. Sarah has an MBA with a concentration in social entrepreneurship from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a dual Bachelor of Science in biology and biochemistry from Brandeis University. Sarah served for many years as a stage manager for theater and dance productions at the high school, college, and professional level, bringing creative vision to life on stage. She sees many parallels to her work today as a consultant, coach, and teacher, supporting founders and nonprofit leaders in ensuring their visions for change are viable, sustainable, and impactful.
Auto-generated captions will be provided. If you have additional questions or to request additional accommodations to ensure your participation, please contact Michael Ibrahim.
