Strategic Planning for an Industry Association
OPPORTUNITY
The Board of an international professional association serving over 2,000 members was undergoing an unprecedented transition from founder-led to professionally-managed organization.
The Board chair saw an opportunity to realign its strategy, mission, and governance to maximize membership value and engaged ReGroup to design and facilitate a strategic planning offsite with key stakeholders to address the organization’s transition.
PROCESS
- Through interviews with key board members and executive staff, we defined the planning objectives and established the offsite agenda.
- We set forth ground rules to create a safe environment for presenting and digesting conflicting ideas, challenging the status quo, and reconsidering historically entrenched ideas about the organization’s purpose and operations.
- We facilitated a productive offsite discussion of the organization’s changing opportunities in light of both member needs and industry competition.
RESULTS
The offsite produced a consensus on a targeted and staged approach for 1) completing the transition to professional management, 2) clarifying the organization’s commitment to serve its membership, 3) aligning the quality, transparency and content of member communications with the mission; and reassessing the effectiveness of governance.
“Ann helped us find the opportunity in the middle of a governance transition from our founder to professional management. ReGroup designed and facilitated an offsite that kept the conversation focused, objective, and productive. We walked away a stronger mission and blueprint for success.”