Starting from a blank page — Turning an idea into reality
Developing initial strategies, using phases and creating a robust yet flexible plan for an early stage organisation.
Developing a new organisation’s strategy is very different from creating and implementing a strategy for an established company or even a prestige and globally recognised brand. Whilst there is the freedom of not having pre-existing plans or projects to conform to, being presented with a blank page can be daunting, especially if you’re not sure how to turn your idea into reality. In this article I share my work creating a strategy for a new organisation to turn a concept into a reality.
In my career at the New York Times I regularly supported the international events team so I was pleased to be able to continue working with my former colleague Achilles Tsaltas when he left the organisation to create The Democracy and Culture Foundation.
Achilles set out to develop an organisation with the mission: “to empower society through citizen engagement and better governance.” This goal will be achieved through two events that he previously created — the Athens Democracy Forum and Art for Tomorrow — and via partnerships with The New York Times, The United Nations, The Kofi Annan Foundation, The Council of Europe; The City of Athens; and McKinsey & Company.
Whilst Achilles’ mission, vision, audience and goals were clear, figuring out how to weave these into a launch strategy drawing on these events and partnerships was not. The scope was large and the foundation was effectively a startup that, as a not-for-profit organisation, needed to concentrate all it’s resources on delivering impact to attract and retain donors and financial supporters. The strategy could not rely on communication, marketing or manpower budgets to quickly create and mobilize a community around actions and initiatives. My task was to determine what existing assets and inherent value the organisation could tap into, or be easily acquired, in order to create forward momentum and rapidly start delivering on it’s KPIs and goals to build investor confidence. This is what potential funders and impact supporters would look for as measures of success.
As has been the case with many of the new organisations I’ve worked with, creating the foundation’s strategic plan was as much about deciding what not to do (yet) as deciding what to focus on first. Achilles dreams big, but he knows that taking on too much too soon is not the surest path to success. We reviewed all the objectives in order to understand the ease of delivery and impact value for both the organisation’s operations and the mission. We then grouped these into potential strategic phases before diving deeper and looked at the associated tasks for each objective to understand interdependency between them, per objective and across objectives, to determine if, or when, tasks could be moved between phases.
By creating these phases and understanding task interdependency the launch strategy of the Democracy and Culture foundations is both robust and flexible and the relationships between objectives and tasks will ensure the plan can be adapted and evolve over time. Achilles and the team can focus on delivery knowing how to respond if internal or external circumstances evolve.
“Kristen’s advice and work supporting our newly minted Democracy and Culture Foundation was absolutely spot on and acted as a catalyst in unlocking the way forward with our strategic plan and direction. Her creativity and change-agent ethos gave us greater perspective and clarity on how to approach our community building, engagement and refinement. But her advice went well beyond community ecosystems into the workings and infrastructure of our organisation, proving that she grasps the business holistically.”
Achilles Tsaltas, President, The Democracy & Culture Foundation
Although ‘newly minted’ I am sure The Democracy & Culture Foundation will rapidly start to have an impact by bringing progressive policy reforms, creating new models of democracy and encouraging citizen participation and engagement globally. Achilles has applied his ‘Think, Talk, Do’ methodology throughout our work developing it’s initial strategy and I am confident he will continue this success as he progresses and the foundation grows from its conception to it’s full potential.
If you’d like me to help turn your idea into a reality or help create a robust yet flexible strategy don’t hesitate to get in touch, either via Linkedin or my site: cinqc.co
