Strategic Planning

Kronley & Associates' approach to strategic planning incorporates not only an analysis of an organization's previous or current work, but also considers the organization's values and mission, the context in which it functions including constituent and stakeholder needs, its structure and capacity, and short- and long-term goals, as well as outlines program conceptualization, development and implementation. The strategic planning process typically includes: ongoing listening to the major organizational stakeholders; review and analysis of organizational and contextual materials; literature review; identification of best practices; interviews with organization staff and board as well as others such as experts, peer practitioners and community members; focus groups; achieving substantial effective agreement on vision, mission, goals, objectives and strategies; and the preparation, presentation and dissemination of a final written strategic plan.

Representative Strategic Planning Clients

For nearly twenty years, ADF, an endowed local education fund, has worked to improve student achievement in East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools through a variety of innovative strategies. The community is now grappling with significant change: the continuing after-effects of Hurricane Katrina, which has brought many displaced families and new students; recent state legislation spurring the creation of charter schools and also mandating state takeover of underperforming schools; and the creation, in some more affluent areas of the community, of separate school districts, leaving East Baton Rouge with a smaller tax base and a larger proportion of at-risk students. ADF wishes to ensure that it is responding effectively to these changes, particularly as it transitions to a new executive director.

ADF engaged Kronley & Associates, which had helped to develop ADF’s first strategic plan several years ago, to advise and assist it in developing new strategies to meet changed conditions. The firm examined the organization's role in the community, its accomplishments, its organizational assets and challenges, and its impact at the school and district levels. Drawing on these efforts and in active collaboration with ADF's board and staff, Kronley & Associates developed a blueprint that clarifies emerging organizational goals, articulates ADF's evolving role in fostering significant improvement across the school district, and provides strategies for fulfilling this role. The blueprint, which was approved by ADF's board, speaks to a new and expanded role for ADF in building educator capacity, importing and testing best practices, and monitoring district performance, as well as building broad and diverse community coalitions that will actively promote strategies for student success.

The Home Depot co-founder Arthur M. Blank and his family are major philanthropists in Atlanta and several other places primarily through the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. When the Foundation wanted to examine all facets of its operations in an effort to increase its impact, it selected Kronley & Associates to advise and assist in the development of a strategic plan. The process involved significant research into the communities in which the Foundation is interested, the issues that the family trustees identified as important to them, interviews and focus groups that included hundreds of individuals, and the development of various grantmaking and operational scenarios for the Foundation. The firm designed and facilitated a series of discussions for trustees and staff to choose among the possibilities. This led to a revised mission, a more targeted program, different treatment of discretionary grants, a new staffing arrangement and new assessment mechanisms for the Foundation's own work and that of its grantees.

Mr. Blank is majority owner of the Atlanta Falcons professional football team. While undertaking the strategic plan for the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Kronley & Associates was also asked to advise and assist in the development of a similar plan for Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation (AFYF), that would increase its grantmaking impact, ensure there were synergies between the family foundation and the youth foundation and help add value to the corporate brand.

The Community Renewal Society, a 125-year-old faith-based, social change organization in Chicago, has adopted a new strategic plan, the culmination of a comprehensive planning process that examined every facet of its work. Kronley & Associates designed and facilitated the planning process and developed the plan, which provides a new mission statement, new programs that build increased integration of CRS's two news magazines and its community organizing component, more focused strategies and revised and enhanced communications and development functions.

Tupelo has traditionally had one of the strongest school districts in Mississippi and the Southeast. The community is dedicated to public education and to ensuring that all students perform at the highest levels. Tupelo's commitment to community led it to be recognized in Robert Putnam's well-known book, Better Together. Recently, though, economic, cultural and demographic changes have led the community to reconsider its approaches to public education.

The district engaged Kronley & Associates to lead a strategic planning process for the Tupelo Schools. The process involved looking closely at the community and its surroundings and investigating all facets of the public schools' operations, such as its efforts to ensure that all voices in an increasingly diverse community have input into the future of the public education system. Research and fact-finding conducted by the firm were complemented by extensive interviews and focus groups, resulting in a report with recommendations adopted by the school board.

The firm completed a strategic planning process for the education program of this Chicago-based philanthropy. A key element of the process and the recommendations was to ensure that the Foundation's grantmaking and operating programs are positioned to help shape education policy in the Midwestern states in which the Joyce Foundation works.

  Other strategic planning clients include:

• Alabama Association of Independent Colleges
• Alabama Civil Justice Foundation
• Alabama Power Foundation
• Alumax Foundation
• BellSouth Foundation
• Benwood Foundation
• Byerly Foundation
• Center for Leadership in School Reform
• Center for Learning and Competitiveness
• Coahoma Community College
• CommunityCare Foundation
• Council of Chief State School Officers Project to Improve Achievement in High Poverty Public Schools
• Forum on Education and Democracy
• Foundation for the Carolinas
• Fund for Theological Education
• Hattiesburg Area Education Foundation
• James B. Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy
• Northwest Arkansas Community Foundation
• Piton Foundation
• Public Education Network (PEN)
• Public Education Forum of Mississippi
• Stark Education Partnership