IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you post your entryin text within the forum itself. An MS Word document simply uploaded to the forum is not sufficient to inspire the class dialogue we need.

In this week's assigned reading, you need to consider strategic plans. Having good strategic planning is important for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Strategic plans help organizations evaluate whether their mission, projects or services are relevant now and/or if they will be in the future. They also help to "map-out" where an organization plans to be in a specific period of time. Organizations must map-out their strategic plan very carefully and thoughtfully plotting-out the routes they will take in order to reach a certain milestone on time and on budget.

However, organizations do not have the ability to use GPS to map out their route. Organizations must create a strategy that assumes that contingencies and delays will be likely. In the non-profit world, a strategic plan will require leaders and board members to create mission and vision statements and to identify the organization's key values.

To get a better handle on how this works, please watch the video embedded below:

Now that you have an idea of how mission, vision, and strategic plan fit together, please watch the next video with discusses strategic planning in an NGO (non-governmental organizational):

Without a clear mission or vision it would be difficult for a nonprofit to succeed. The nature of nonprofits requires them to constantly look for funding. Without a the mission, vision and strategy, the organization would have a hard time raising funds or creating effective programs that meet a community need.

Your Week #7 initial post assignment is to work on the prerequisites needed to build a strategic plan upon. You could do this thinking of a nonprofit you might want to start or by thinking of one that already exists. Then write aminimum 300 word essay that addresses the following points:

• Introduction: Start your post off by outlining what your non-profit idea is. Give some quick details on who you want to serve (clients) and how you hope that it will benefit the community.
• Create Your Mission: Start your post off by creating a mission statement for your proposed non-profit, or identifying the mission statement of an existing one. An organizational mission is
• simply the reason why your organization exists. It describes your organization's fundamental purpose. For assistance on writing a mission statement, click here: https://nonprofithub.org/wp-content/themes/nonprofithub/img/landing-pages/mission/nonprofithub-missionstatement.pdfLinks to an external site.
• Establish Your Vision: Next, you need to create a vision statement. A non-profit vision is basically a picture of what your non-profit idea will look like in the future. This should be a statement of an organizational reality you will create through your proposed organization. You could also identify the vision statement of an existing nonprofit. For help on writing a vision statement, visit: https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/how-to-write-a-vision-statement-why-that-isnt-enough/Links to an external site.
• Articulate Your Values: Values are traits or qualities that represent your organization's highest priorities and deeply held beliefs. These should support your organization's mission and vision. Your values should reflect how your non-profit will value it's customers/clients, employees, vendors, and stakeholders. These values will ultimately set the foundation for the organization's culture and create the ideal environment for your nonprofit's mission to be fulfilled and vision to be realized.
• Theoretical application: You may seek out additional information on the topic of non-profit strategic planning and how a mission, vision, and values help guide that plan. Use what you are able to find to make recommendations for future practice paving the way for your non-profit venture to succeed at helping those you hope to serve.
• Summary: Provide a summary of your post including a link between the main idea of each paragraph with the evidence you used to support your ideas. For assistance on how to write a good summary, visit https://depts.washington.edu/owrc/Handouts/How%20to%20Write%20a%20Summary.pdfLinks to an external site. .

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ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Students are required to submit theirinitial post no later than Sunday of Week #7 at 11:55pm CST and then respond substantively to at least 3 other classmates before 11:55pm CST on Sunday evening of Week #7. Your responses to classmates should address the logic of your classmate's approach to the task. Were you able to understand their reasoning as it was written? Ideally, helpful forum responses will challenge fellow students to 'up their game' sort of speak. That doesn't mean being overly-critical of classmate's posts of course but it may mean respectfully bringing an objection to the reasoning your classmate is using. Remember that the goal here is create a solid constructive class debate over how we can allbest move this discussion to a high level of critical inquiry. It's not a competition - its a cooperation.
2. ALL sources referenced should be citedin-text within your initial postas well asat the end of the post in a delineated 'References' sectionsimilar to what would normally appear in a standard MS Word paper assignment also formatted to APA standards.
3. Initial post must be a minimum of300 words (about one page)and response/reply posts aminimum of 50 words eachas noted in the course syllabus.
4. Please paste your actual forum posts within the forum dialogue box itself. Simply linking/attaching an MS Word document as your initial or reply posts will not be sufficient to move our forum discussion along in the way it has been designed to.