Strategic Planning through an Equity Lens

Conduct Comprehensive Assessment

Determine Your Priorities

Design Implementation Plan

Organizations use strategic planning to determine their priorities for the next few years, and those priorities then shape the goals an organization will use to guide their work. Too often, strategic plans serve to unintentionall reinforce oppressive systems because that’s what we’re used to. With our model of strategic planning through an equity lens, you get hands-on experience putting equity principles to work while developing your strategic plan. The magic of this model is that your organization will end up with a solid plan that prioritizes equity through a process that helps you put those ideas into practice right away. And because so many organizations have a strategic plan that sits unused on the shelf, we also help you create an implementation plan. In your implementation plan, you will clearly lay out the specific steps you will take to bring your plan to life. Everyone on the team will understand exactly what their responsibilities are as you work as a team to achieve the goals outlined in your strategic plan.

How We Embed Racial Equity into a Strategic Plan

During our work together, we guide you to create a strategic plan that centers equity throughout the entire document. We do this by helping you:

  • Build a planning team that, as much as possible, has lived experience with racism and other forms of oppression.
  • Create content for your strategic plan that explicitly cites your organization’s commitment to equity.
  • Create priorities for the plan that include ways in which you push equity forward at your organization.
  • Consider how all of the priorities impact and intersect with equity at your organization.
  • Create an implementation plan that explicitly outlines how successfully achieving the goals of your strategic plan will help push equity forward at your organization.

How We Embed Equity into a Strategic Planning Process 

  • The process used is emergent to better accommodate the needs of those participating in the creation of the strategic plan and to incorporate knowledge gained throughout the experience. 
  • The entire planning process is centered in kindness and care for each other over productivity. Unnecessary urgency, perfectionism, binary thinking, and other fear based ways of working are explicitly pointed out to gently guide the group back to aligning with anti-oppression and equity.
  • The organization creates a planning team utilizing provided guidelines to ensure marginalized voices are represented to the greatest degree possible.
  • A planning meeting is held with the team to determine and care for accessibility needs for the entire planning process such as communication, attending meetings, decision making structure, technology, etc.
  • Facilitation of meetings is done so that people who have lived experience with racism and other relevant forms of oppression lead idea generation and decision making as much as possible. 
  • There are frequent opportunities to provide feedback for those not on the planning team. 
  • There is time taken to discuss the process as well as the plan to ensure that those who hold marginalized identities are not burdened by either. 
  • Conversations are regularly held to ascertain whether or not equity was thoughtfully included during various parts of the process. 

If this kind of strategic planning process that CommunityConnective facilitates through an equity lens feels like it might be a good fit for your organization, please contact us so that we can discuss creating your next plan together.

Her kindness is a balm. I like that even though we were familiar with them, going over the ground rules each month helped settle and place us. I appreciated the resources and have used many of them since.
Accountability and validation, thoughtful and thought provoking. She cares deeply about the subject.

She worked to make sure all voices were heard and that people participated. She is very kind and thoughtful and clearly has passion for this work
★★★★★

I have had the pleasure of working with Heidi, Prerna, and Rebecca for the past three years, and I cannot emphasize enough how invaluable their contributions have been to the education and progress of our organization. Their dedication and commitment to our mission have been truly remarkable.

Traci Rivera

Formerly The Night Ministry Chief of Staff

★★★★★

During 2020, post the murder of George Floyd, my organization was in dire need of external assistance to sort through the many emotions flowing through staff. With the help of Heidi Massey’s expertise in social justice and racial equity, her anti-racist work was just what we needed at the time we needed it most. Not only did Heidi help plan the structure and assisted with the facilitation of our racial caucuses, her work started the healing process that was essential in changing the workplace culture around race and building allies. We are more than grateful to have partnered with CommunityConnective and truly value Heidi’s expertise.

Tracy Bishop

Tracy Bishop

Forest Preserves of Cook County Director of Permits, Rentals and Concessions

★★★★★

I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and partnering with Heidi in a variety of ways over the last 10 years – in one to one and small group sessions, workshops, panels, and more! She is a highly skilled, versatile, and conscious facilitator and thought leader in the equity, social justice, and leadership spaces. Heidi’s knowledge base and experience is deep, and she also partners well with other facilitators to ensure the voices and lived experience of diverse participant groups are present. Every learning experience I’ve had with Heidi has been transformative.

Alex Cornwell

Alex Cornwell

Chicago Lights Director of Evaluation and Impact Racial Equity & Social Justice Committee Co-Chair, Chicago Women in Philanthropy

★★★★★

They nurtured my belief that vulnerability is an important value of a leader when changing the culture of an organization that seeks to embody diversity, equity, and inclusivity. Working with Prerna and Heidi through our coaching sessions helped to pay more attention to my inner voice, to trust my intuition, to be open to make mistakes, and to respect the pace of inclusive processes during the construction and implementation of policies and decision-making.

Rev. Carlos Reyes Rodríguez

Rev. Carlos Reyes Rodríguez

Immigration Law & Justice Network Culture & Outreach Manager

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