The board and staff leadership of a large, highly diversified regional human services agency was committed to the principle of stakeholder engagement in the planning process but did not have a clear picture of what this could look like in practice. Initial conversations about the possibilities, which ranged from direct participation by stakeholders (consumers, staff, board, funders, government, peer agencies, etc.) to different degrees of consultation and input, suggested the agency leadership had greater comfort with a mixed model. To this end, a board-staff steering group was formed that included both a cross-section and a diagonal slice of the organization, and processes were put in place to obtain input from a wide spectrum of individuals and groups with valuable perspectives about the history and current situation of the agency, emerging community needs, and trends in the field.

• Coached the leadership in determining the composition and charge to the steering group and facilitated the steering group’s initial conversations, which aimed to clarify the purpose and scope of the planning process and stakeholder consultations.
• Provided materials to guide interviews and focus group conversations conducted by the steering committee members with stakeholders, facilitated focus groups with staff at all levels and designed and analyzed a board survey.
• Consulted in the tabulation and review of demographic and financial trends within the agency and facilitated in-depth discussions of the results of the data collection with the Board, middle managers, and the steering committee.
• Created mechanisms for integrating the steering committee’s deliberations with in-depth discussions by the board as a whole; strengthened this board-staff partnership by suggesting ad hoc work groups organized around four “compelling issues”.
• Planned and facilitated the first ever board-staff retreat designed to validate, rank and flesh out possible strategic priorities and create a vision for the agency’s future.

The officially approved plan and annual budgeting process were integrated so that the agency’s strategic priorities and resource allocations were aligned. Ad hoc board-staff task groups evolved into standing committees charged with implementation and/or tracking outcomes. As part of the plan, the Board committed itself to an in-depth board assessment, and subsequent development activities focused on the role of the board in general and in resource development specifically. The executive staff developed mechanisms for quarterly review of their strategic priorities. Follow-up with the executive staff a year later focused, in the light of research conducted in the intervening year, on in-depth examination of possible approaches to addressing a particularly challenging strategic priority.