Don't Plan Blind: Why Integrated Strategy Starts with Organizational Health

Strategic planning without an honest assessment of organizational health is like building on quicksand. Yet most nonprofits skip this critical diagnostic step, rushing to create strategic plans based on aspirations rather than reality—resulting in failed implementations, wasted resources, and persistent dysfunction.
This session reveals why the smartest organizations start their strategic planning process with a rigorous organizational health assessment and impact definition—and how this foundation transforms strategic planning from a performative exercise into a powerful catalyst for change.
Led by Good Scout Group's leadership team, Charisse Brown Marcus and Evelyn Allen, alongside Adrian Slagle, Chief Marketing Officer of the USO, and Philips McCarty, President of The Mental Health Coalition, this session takes you inside live organizational transformations.
Through their organizations' case studies, you'll see how comprehensive organizational health assessment across three dimensions—mission delivery effectiveness, fundraising potential, and supporter engagement capacity—surfaces the hidden gaps that undermine strategic plans. You'll learn how confidential stakeholder interviews, data analysis, and cultural diagnostics reveal the truth about what's actually happening versus what leadership thinks is happening.
Assessment alone isn't enough. This session demonstrates how defining and measuring impact becomes the connective tissue between organizational health and strategic direction. When you truly understand your capacity for mission delivery, you can articulate what impact looks like, and how to measure it authentically.
The USO and Mental Health Coalition will share how impact definition emerged from their organizational health work—creating clarity around what success actually means, how to track it, and how to communicate it in ways that drive fundraising, stakeholder engagement, and internal cohesion.
This disciplined methodology connects organizational reality to strategic possibility. Whether you're leading through post-merger integration, navigating growth challenges, or sensing that your current structure isn't optimizing mission impact, this session provides a replicable framework for getting honest before you get strategic.