Sunday, January 22, 2012

After the SWOT, Formulating Issues and Focal Points

On January 14th, the KCC Sangha met to discuss KCC's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats/challenges (SWOT).  This work was a preliminary step in beginning to hone down the major categories of strategic focus.  As a way of transitioning into that next step, meeting organizers asked attendees to fill out 3x5 cards and identify the areas that seemed most pressing to them.  It was a good time to get a first sense of things--the SWOT items and discussion were freshly in mind.  Peter F graciously agreed to take the cards you filled out and collapse them into categories.  There were, of course, a lot of answers given by just one or two people.  (Peter's chart is at the end of this post.)  Four responses, however, were given by large numbers of people, and two others were also mentioned frequently.  Have a look:
  1. Communication (28)
  2. Fundraising and financial transparency (27)
  3. Volunteers; organizing, management, mentoring (27)
  4. Urban Center (22)
  5. Program and practice groups (13)
  6. Succession (11)
On Monday following that meeting, members of the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) met and we spent the majority of the meeting further discussing these categories.  One of the difficulties is thinking about how to frame these categories conceptually.  With little effort, we can divide KCC's activities into major areas--facilities, finances, operations, volunteers, programs, communications.  But these categories alone don't suggest a strategic orientation.  It's easy enough to imagine that the strategy for one or more of these categories is just "continue with current practices." 

A panoramic view of the January 16 meeting of the Strategic Planning Committee.

Take the urban center as one example.  We have known for well over a decade that the current site at 73 NE Monroe is inadequate--too small, too few meeting rooms.  But what is our strategic goal?  Do we merely want a bigger center, or do we want a different center, and if so, what kind?  Asking these questions is more useful than just identifying categories--they help bring the larger category in to sharper focus. After kicking ideas around for an hour, members of the SPC began to get a deeper sense of what we were actually looking for--and realized we had a lot more work in front of us.

What are your thoughts?  If you were limited to five or six strategic initiatives over the next five years, what would they be? 

At the next SPC meeting (Monday, Jan 23), the committee will step back from this discussion in order to try to lay out a firmer timeline of events, with members identifying how much time and work they can commit to the process.  Then we'll be back at it, focusing back in on the strategic plan.


A document containing the aggregated list of suggested topics for KCC's strategic direction are below the jump.



SWOT Meeting Priority Card Responses

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for your valuable updates, Jeff. I'm glad you asked about possible strategic initiatives. Based on input from the sangha at the SWOT meeting and through members surveys I suggest 5 initiatives with key issues within each initiative. Here's my thoughts:
    1. KCC Organizational Development:
    • Communications
    • Development (Fundraising)
    • Financial transparency
    • Volunteer recruitment, mentoring and retention
    • Leadership Development (Program Council/Board/Committees)
    • KCC Staff (SCOL and Urban Center)

    2. Urban Center Facility:
    • Purchase and renovation of a new Urban Center
    • Monroe Street building?
    • Ongoing operations and financial support of facilities
    • Grow connection to SCOL

    3. SCOL Facility:
    • Finish construction for long-term retreats (fence, lama and cook quarters)
    • One and three year retreats
    • Construct short-term retreat facilities and provide short-term retreats
    • Ongoing operations and financial support of facilities
    • Land stewardship
    • Grow connection to the Urban Center

    4. KCC Programs and Practice Groups:
    • Short-term Retreats
    • Ongoing Weekly Mediation Programs
    • Adult Programs ( Ngondro, Tonglen, Mahamudra, Seven Points of Mind Training, Refuge, Bodhisattva Vow)
    • Classes and study groups
    • SCOL 1 and 3 year long term retreats
    • Practice groups for specific practices or issues such as end-of-life/hospice
    • Children and young adult programs
    • Lineage connection and Mirek Retreats

    5. Succession issues:
    • Resident Lama
    • Assistant teachers
    • Lineage connection

    Again, thanks for your stellar communication efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As usual, Jeff, I appreciate the effort to communicate. Tell us sometime.. how many people are using the blog, and how much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Actually, pretty good. Our daily page count is around 20 and each time I post, the linked post (email, Facebook) gets about 20 referrals. That's as of right now.

    Jeff Alworth

    ReplyDelete

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