Nonprofit Strategic Planning Retreat Agenda: A Day You Can Run

Before you book the room, answer one question: who will hold this plan in October, when the gala is three weeks out and a grant report is late? If the answer is you, the retreat has to produce a plan small enough to carry next to the day job.

The sample strategic planning retreat agenda below gives every block a time, an exercise and a written result. A half-day version follows it.

What Is a Strategic Planning Retreat For?

A strategic planning retreat is one or two days when board members and senior staff make the few choices a plan depends on: which priorities to pursue, what to stop, and who owns each priority. The research and the drafting happen before the retreat. The finished plan comes after it.

BoardSource describes the board’s role as to “set direction, provide input, and ultimately approve the final plan.” The retreat is where much of that input happens, with the executive director and senior staff at the same table. A 2000 BoardSource article on working with consultants adds a warning: “a one-day retreat with no preparation will not yield a full-blown five-year strategic plan.” Our planning guide covers the steps before the retreat.

What Should You Prepare Before the Retreat?

Start three weeks out. Write the two to four decisions the retreat must make, send a one-page data pack and a three-question survey a week ahead, and bring a draft plan for people to react to. Agree in writing beforehand on what the board decides and what the executive director decides.

1. The decision list. Two to four questions the day must answer, such as which program grows and which one shrinks. Send it to the board chair first.
2. The data pack. One page each on results against the last plan and revenue by source, plus a draft nonprofit SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) with evidence for each item.
3. The pre-survey. Three questions to everyone attending: what is working, what is not, and what should we stop?
4. A draft to react to. People edit faster than they write, so bring a draft plan template with your best guesses filled in.

Settle one more thing in advance: who decides what. The board sets direction and approves the plan. The executive director usually drafts it and decides how the work gets done. Put that split on the first page of the agenda.

What Does a One-Day Retreat Agenda Look Like?

A one-day nonprofit strategic planning retreat agenda runs from about 8:30 to 4:00. The morning reviews results and outside changes. The afternoon is for choosing priorities, deciding what to stop and assigning owners. Each block ends with something written down, so the group leaves with the decisions for a draft plan.

Sample one-day agenda. Breaks fall at 9:45 and 2:15, lunch at 11:30.

Two choices here are deliberate. Choosing starts right after lunch, leaving the afternoon for decisions. And stopping gets its own 45 minutes, because a plan that adds three priorities and stops nothing has only added work. If the mission check turns into a debate, park it for a later board meeting.

Which Strategic Planning Exercises Work Best?

Use one exercise per block and make each produce something written: a list, a vote count or a name and a date. Five nonprofit strategic planning exercises cover a full retreat: a results review, a short SWOT check, priority drafts with dot voting, a stop-doing list and an owner-and-date round.

• Results review. Three columns on the wall: promised and done, promised and not done, and what surprised us.
• SWOT check. Cut the pre-read draft to five items per quadrant, then star the three findings the afternoon must answer.
• Priority drafts and dot voting. Groups of four to six draft up to three priorities each. The Community Tool Box action-planning workshop suggests ballot voting on importance and feasibility, or dots to register preferences. The vote ranks the options. The group then settles on up to three, and the board confirms them when it approves the plan.
• Stop-Doing List. For each priority, one program, event or habit to stop, shrink or delay.
• Owner-and-date round. What happens first, who owns it, by when, what it needs and who must be told: the parts of an action plan in the Community Tool Box.

How Do You Run a Half-Day Retreat?

Send the look-back and the SWOT as pre-reads and spend three and a half hours on choosing, stopping and assigning owners. Or split the work across two mornings a week apart, so people can test the priorities before committing. Keep the decision list and the commit block either way.

In CNPC’s intake applications, 41% come from organizations with operating expenses under $250,000 (67 of 165 intake entries). For an organization that size, a morning may be easier to protect than a full day. For two mornings, end the first with the priority drafts and the vote, let staff test them during the week, and run the stop and commit blocks on the second. The Community Tool Box also splits its action-planning workshop into two half-day sessions, with homework in between.

1. 9:00 Open: purpose, decision list, ground rules (20 minutes)
2. 9:20 Questions on the pre-reads, then priority drafts and dot voting (70 minutes)
3. 10:30 Break (15 minutes)
4. 10:45 Stop-Doing List (40 minutes)
5. 11:25 Owner-and-date round (45 minutes)
6. 12:10 Close: what staff hear, the first review date (20 minutes)

A short retreat should cut the reports and keep the choosing. Anything people can read at home belongs in the pre-reads.

Who Should Run the Room?

Someone other than the executive director, if you can. The executive director has a stake in every priority and needs to argue for some of them. A board member with meeting skills, a peer executive director or a hired facilitator can keep time, draw out quiet voices and hold the group to the decision list.

The Community Tool Box guide to facilitation says a facilitator “is neutral and never takes sides.” An executive director cannot be neutral about programs they run. Hire an outside facilitator when the board is split, a founder is leaving or a merger is on the table.

Either way, the executive director brings recommendations, takes part and leads the stop conversation, because they will explain those cuts to staff. CNPC coaches executive directors before and after a retreat. It does not facilitate retreats.

What Happens in the 30 Days After?

Within a week, the executive director turns the decisions into a one-page summary. The board approves the priorities within the month, staff hear them from the executive director, and the first quarterly review goes on the calendar before anyone leaves the retreat. A priority without an owner and a date tends to drift.

In CNPC’s intake applications, strategic planning is a named coaching need in 20% (30 of 152). CNPC’s review of those applications lists implementing plans rather than shelving them among the benefits sought. A plan without someone accountable for it is a wish list.

Book the first quarterly review before anyone leaves the room. A date on the calendar does more for the plan than a polished document.

Executive coaching works with the executive director on the priorities they own: six sessions for $300 to $600, by operating expenses. Executive team coaching works with the leadership team on keeping its commitments, also six sessions, for $500 to $1,100. Fees stay this low because volunteer coaches donate their time, and every CNPC coach holds a credential from the International Coaching Federation. See what coaching the leadership team involves.

Quick win: this week, write the two to four decisions you want the retreat to make and send them to your board chair. If the plan itself is still taking shape, start with our strategy guide.

For a coach beside you in the months after the retreat, Apply Now.

Frequently Asked Questions