Strategic Plan — 2020
Working document. Materials in this draft document are under development and subject to change.
Introduction
Pre-Meds Without Borders is committed to a multi-stakeholder strategy and believes that inclusivity, transparency and accountability are critical success factors. As a respected steward of the public interest, Pre-Meds Without Borders is further committed to public accountability, openness, and collaboration.
To develop an informed plan that is consistent with founding principles and key mandates, Pre-Meds Without Borders sought and incorporated input from major stakeholders, resulting in a comprehensive strategic planning document.
This strategic plan defines activities, goals, success factors, outcomes, risks, dependencies, and phasing through fiscal year 2020.
“the broader the base, the greater the peak” — Unknown
Mission
Nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing healthy initiatives through proactive engagement and high impact volunteer work.
Pre-Meds Without Borders is a leadership platform designed for stand out students to adapt and explore classroom teachings into real world impact. The student chapter model serves to raise awareness and mobilize support for grassroots initiatives while empowering students to be proactive agents for change. With an increasing national footprint, Pre-Meds Without Borders provides a robust framework for passionate young leaders to make a lasting and recognizable impact.
Through partnerships with leading nonprofit organizations and members from the professional community, Pre-Meds Without Borders continues to provide distinct opportunities for students to get involved in meaningful volunteer assignments and career development programs.
Areas of Focus: Healthcare, Education and Social Responsibility.
Strategic Objectives
Taking into consideration various external forces and evolving student needs, Pre-Meds Without Borders has prioritized five strategic objectives to ensure fulfillment of key mandates by 2020.
Strategic objectives are the result of stakeholder input regarding key challenges and opportunities as well as related initiatives. The five strategic objectives include: brand equity, capacity building, financial sustainability, strategic partnerships, and program development.
Brand Equity
a. Strategy
- Develop multi-stakeholder approach that is mindful of key stakeholders needs, i.e. engaging with stakeholders on regular basis, and ensuring transparency regarding pre-defined goals and objectives.
- Key stakeholders include, board of directors, donors, partners, senior leadership team, chapter relations team, student executive board members, general membership, university partners, and the broader community.
- Create marketing strategies aimed at growth, organizational awareness, key campaigns and fundraising initiatives.
- Promote dialogue and continuous engagement with target audience and stakeholders, i.e. obtain regular feedback.
- Recruit, hire and train key roles to manage blog and social media accounts, i.e. Creative Director, Digital Marketing Strategy, Social Media Manager, Website Administrator, etc.
b. Digital Media
- Establish an effective online presence that is consistent across all media channels and part of a broader integrated marketing strategy.
- Create a unique, polished and memorable website experience with a blog component that embodies the spirit of the organization.
- Curate engaging content and distribute through key channels on a regular timetable, i.e. content calendar.
c. Marketing Materials
- Prepare media kit, and marketing materials (e.g. case studies, whitepapers, etc.) to help raise awareness for the organization’s purpose, mission, vision, and accomplishments.
- Distribute monthly Email Newsletter.
- Create Quarterly Publication (digital, print, or both) to be distributed to stakeholders that would help keep everyone informed regarding achievements, and future plans.
d. Public Relations
- Connect with student-run media outlets (newspaper, radio, etc.) in order to get publicity and exposure.
- Build relationships with local and national media, bloggers, evangelists, ambassadors, and journalists.
Capacity Building
a. Corporate Leadership
- Put people and processes in place to deliver against goals and objectives
- Promote diversity and inclusion policies to ensure people from diverse backgrounds, disciplines, and skill sets are involved.
- Develop talent acquisition strategies that focus on skills based volunteering, pro bono services, gap year programs.
- Recruit, train, and hire professionals with domain expertise, i.e. Technology, Human Resources, Finance, Marketing, Operations, etc.
- Create specific job descriptions that outline responsibilities of certain national organization ‘employees’.
- Make sure the individuals have an underlying desire and passion to serve in a nonprofit capacity.
- The organization leadership will need to include experienced professionals who have previously worked with nonprofits.
b. Board of Directors
- Putting together a board of directors comprised of people who are leaders in the industry, and have the desire to serve the organization
- The Board would engender trust in the organization, give it credibility and endorse it to sponsors and donors.
- The Board would also serve to guide the officers/members of the organization and perform oversight functions.
- The Board members would need clarity about what is expected of them in terms of their time commitment, and what sort of guidance the organization would expect.
- Consider establishing various advisory boards, i.e. Medical Advisory Board, etc.
c. Continuity Planning
- Recruit new volunteers as experienced ones graduate and leave the program.
- The nature of the program means that we will experience a high turnover rate, i.e. graduation.
- In order to promote the continuity of the program, each chapter should have a ‘permanent’ faculty advisor who can anchor and help ensure a seamless transition.
- Hold well-publicized elections in order to keep the leadership of the chapter stable.
- Get commitments from members to serve for a semester or more, perhaps require members to put in time before they are offered a chance to go abroad on missions.
- Well documented procedures and processes will help new members/leadership make transitions easier.
- The Chapter Relations team will also provide necessary support and oversight to promote continuity.
- Set appropriate expectations and gain upfront commitment, i.e. make sure that all members/chapters understand the need for volunteers to try to ‘replace’ themselves. As students graduate and leave the program, we need to make sure the upcoming students can take over leadership roles within the organization.
d. Process
- Build process and technology infrastructure to support remote distributed teams and social collaboration.
- Streamline operations by continuously finding ways to do more with less.
- Create efficient intake process that centralize operations, resulting in increased visibility and responsiveness.
- Recognize need for organizational alignment with anticipated growth.
e. Technology
- Pilot and evaluate tools for internal and external communication with general membership, the community, student executive boards, donors, partners, alumni, corporate leadership team, board members, and other stakeholders, i.e. email newsletters, conference calls, webinars, social media, etc.
- Determine method and frequency for various stakeholder communication.
f. Documentation
- Prepare technical documentation to support rapid onboarding, especially in cases of high turnover.
- Develop Student Chapter Guide, Programming Guide, Quick Reference Guide, Student Handbook, Field Guide, FAQ Documents, and Standard Club Constitution, Sample Curriculum, Workbooks, etc.
- Create supplemental documents to standardize collection of key information, including event checklist, student executive board roster, event sign-in sheet, intake forms, general ledger, case study templates etc.
Financial Sustainability
a. Tax Exempt Status
- Identify trusted legal advisor.
- Secure commitment for pro bono legal services and general counsel.
- Review strategic plan with key advisors.
- Navigate complex regulatory and compliance requirements as well as major milestones.
- Establish nonprofit entity, i.e. incorporation, EIN, etc.
- Gather requirements for obtaining formal 501(c)3 status recognition.
- Obtain 501(c)3 status to qualify for giving opportunities.
- Secure fiscal sponsorship in lieu of tax-exempt status.
b. Banking Services
- Evaluate requirements and open centralized business bank account with necessary roles and permissions.
- Build capabilities for collecting donations though corporate website and emerging digital channels, such as QR Codes, Venmo, etc.
c. Fundraising
- Develop core skills and foundational capabilities to drive financial sustainability efforts.
- Recruit, hire and train for key roles, i.e. Chief Development Officer, Vice President of Philanthropic Giving, Director of Major Gifts, Senior Proposal Writer, etc.
- Submit proposals and common grant applications for fundraising consideration.
- Partner with grant makers and private foundations.
- Prioritize key fundraising sources, including major gifts, fundraisers, institutional giving, government funding, grants, sponsorships, annual fund, charitable contributions, planned giving, special events, program fees, memberships, corporate gifts, etc.
- Develop marketing plans and make use of appropriate social media as well as traditional media channels to reach perspective donors and fiscal sponsors.
- Leverage student chapter network for grassroots fundraising while remaining in compliance with university guidelines.
- Draft effective proposals that inspire action by highlighting organizational accomplishments, goals, and objectives.
d. Transparency
- Create a culture of transparency, chronicle progress and articulate clear path forward to encourage first-time giving.
- Adhere to statement of financial accounting standards.
- Maintain up-to-date general ledger.
- Ensure regular and timely communication with donors and sponsors to support planned giving, including new commitments and renewals.
e. Endowment Fund
- Establish endowment fund.
- Create an endowment fund to finance scholarships for selected students to pursue further education or research in healthcare or medicine.
- Secure and solicit advice from a fund manager who offer suitable strategies.
- Determine baseline reserve income, structure, size, and scope of endowment fund. Develop transparent and fair scholarship selection process.
Strategic Partnerships
a. Selection Criteria
- Identify like-minded organizations and individuals that share mission and vision to create synergy.
- Employ selectiveness to ensure platform integrity.
- Establish criterion and due diligence strategy for vetting during the perspective partner selection process.
- Develop concurrent model for national and local partnership programs.
b. Program Management
- Cultivate strategic partnerships with corporations, nonprofits, and other professional organizations.
- Seek out dedicated point of contact and establish regular communication.
- Define partnership scope and parameters.
Program Development
a. Chapter Relations
- Create a Chapter Relations team that will manage student chapter network.
- Recruit and establish new chapters by conducting orientations, training, and providing ongoing support to student chapters.
- Scale in proportion to the amount of new chapters created.
b. Growth
- Expand national footprint by establishing new chapters at major universities.
- Create a plan or process on how to ‘market’ the organization at universities and start chapters.
- Continue to grow the general membership at existing chapters and find ways to reach a broader student audience to encourage diverse membership.
- Connect with other student groups, faculty, and staff, in order to co-host events and make joint announcements.
c. Programming
- Create sample curriculum with programming recommendations.
- Develop a robust framework that can be adapted to meet the needs of individual student chapters.
- Ensure balanced programming to meet professional, academic and community expectations.
- Elicit regular feedback from chapters, members, and communities to meet evolving student chapter needs.
d. Volunteer Abroad
- Increase focus on medical mission trips & volunteer abroad initiatives
- Provide early exposure for underclassmen to see if this is what they expect/really want to pursue for a career.
- Help students gain a global perspective
- Serve traditionally underserved communities and have a lasting effect.
- Create opportunities for student collaboration that result in lasting friendships.
- Account for liability by creating waivers and/or consent forms that are drafted/reviewed by an attorney
- Reliance on third party organizations requires thorough vetting process to identify trusted partners.
- Help members and student chapters to procure the funds to participate.
- Standardize volunteer abroad programs by establishing best practices, i.e. logistics, coordination, appointing team leaders, chaperones, special committees, roll calls, passports, vaccinations, travel documents, checklists, etc.
- Develop contingency protocols for emergency situations.
e. National Campaigns
- Launch national campaigns that chapters and communities can embrace, i.e. #WomenWhoCare.
- Leverage student chapter network to mobilize grassroots support and maximize impact for meaningful causes.
- Promote inter-campus collaboration efforts between student leaders across the entire student chapter network.
- Build awareness though design, content, and distribution strategy effectiveness.
- Ensure alignment to maximize impact by selecting projects that are relevant to all stakeholders.
- Identify external partnership opportunities and synergies to extend impact.
f. Mentorship
- Facilitate professional development through mentorship, shadowing, and networking opportunities.
- Promote leadership and interpersonal soft skills development.
- Obtain commitments from qualified mentors and local resources.
- Cultivate partnerships with healthcare professionals.
- To account for limited availability, ask students to act professionally, to be respectful of mentor’s time.
g. Recognition
- Create programs to recognize individual and group contributions, i.e. volunteers, student executive board members, chapters, etc.
- Create digital certificates that are issued upon successful completion of the program and can be shared on LinkedIn.
- Draft acceptance letter to congratulate new members and welcome them to the organization.
- Write personalized letters of recommendation for select candidates, acknowledging their contributions to the organization.
- Establish Imperial Scholars Research Fellowship Program to recognize and encourage student involvement in areas of research and scholarship
h. Alumni Relations
- Stay in touch with alumni by maintaining up-to-date contact information.
- Continue to recognize alumni contributions by profiling former members.
- Establish regular communication with alumni through email newsletters and outreach campaigns.
- Inform alumni community regarding key achievements and objectives.
- Provide opportunities for alumni to remain active and contribute after graduation.
To learn more, please visit http://pmborders.org.
