Planning for our Future
By Karen Bly, NOAH Executive Director
Like many nonprofits, NOAH has been navigating our “new normal” in this post-pandemic world. Since 2020, NOAH has seen shifting paradigms in fundraising and in-person events. In 2021, NOAH hired their first full-time Executive Director (that’s me!) and in 2022, NOAH hired a part-time Program Support Specialist to provide necessary support to new programs and services for our primarily volunteer-driven organization. With all these significant happenings, NOAH leadership knew it was time to assess our strategic priorities and initiate a plan for our immediate future.
Near the end of 2021, NOAH secured the help of an outside consulting firm to serve as our guide for what would be a nearly year-long journey of identifying and articulating NOAH’s organizational priorities and setting realistic goals over a three-year period, starting in 2023. In NOAH’s forty-year history, we have been no stranger to the strategic planning process; plans in 1998, 2003, 2010, and 2016 have each led NOAH to significant growth and impacted the lives of countless members of our community through programs offering information, support, and fellowship.
The 2023-2025 Strategic Plan process included three key phases:
• Phase I – the Board conducted an organizational assessment and participated in an educational session to review the findings from the assessment and explore implications for NOAH’s operations and strategic planning.
• Phase II – the Strategic Priorities Task Force, consisting of staff and Board members, explored insights and experiences since the completion of NOAH’s 2016 strategic planning work and framed a market research plan to inform the planning work. The market research plan consisted of stakeholder surveys, one-on-one and small group interviews, an exploration of several comparable organizations whose operations and program portfolio could inform NOAH’s choices, and a program-mapping exercise during which a visualization tool was developed to map NOAH’s programs and facilitate trade-off and investment discussions. The results of the research were reviewed by the full Board during facilitated sessions when the Board re-examined NOAH’s externally-facing statements (Vision, Mission, Values) and provided the foundation for the Executive Director to draft 3-5 Strategic Priorities for the planning horizon.
• Phase III – Board members participated in small Tactical Planning Teams to craft Goals and Objectives for their assigned Strategic Priority. These individual plans were reviewed and aligned by the full Board during a virtual retreat in November 2022.
Throughout the process four topics emerged as immediate priorities. In a continuing effort to strengthen organizational infrastructure, our Strategic Priorities Task Force would identify Strategic Priority 1 as Strengthening Board governance and capacity. Goals include refining committee structure, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and developing a board leadership pipeline to ensure NOAH’s future.
As we reviewed our programs and services, the Strategic Priorities Task Force chose to focus on NOAH’s programs and the diversity of our community by making Strategic Priority 2 to Ensure content and access of programs and services reflect the diversity of the albinism community. The goals of this priority are to provide a portfolio of programs and services that meets or exceeds the needs of our community and to affirm and center NOAH’s commitment to principles and practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Strategic Priority 3 would focus on NOAH’s funding. To Ensure that NOAH’s operational funds are sufficient, reliable, and flexible, theTactical Planning Team for this priority set goals to strengthen and leverage the Board’s role in fund development; build reliable, unrestricted contributed revenue to fuel operational flexibility; and explore vehicles to preserve NOAH’s long-term sustainability.
Last, but certainly not least, Strategic Priority 4 was identified to Expand and nurture NOAH’s advocacy, awareness, and communication among our stakeholder community. With a goal of making ourselves well known by target audiences, our Tactical Planning Team also set goals of actively and broadly communicating the impact of NOAH’s work, donor contributions, and volunteer efforts as well as cultivating partnerships (with professionals, corporations, and other nonprofit organizations) to support NOAH’s growth and operations.
These four Strategic Priorities will be the beacon of navigation for NOAH staff and the Board of Directors over the next three years. I encourage the NOAH community to join us on this journey, continuing the long-standing history of community support and engagement as we work together to carry on NOAH’s Mission and make NOAH’s Vision a reality.
NOAH’s Mission
NOAH’s mission is to act as a conduit for accurate and authoritative information about all aspects of living with albinism and to provide a place where people with albinism and their families in the U.S. and Canada can find acceptance, support and fellowship.
NOAH’s Vision
We envision a world where people with albinism are empowered to be fully functioning members of society, where barriers and the stigma of difference no longer exist, and where people with albinism have a quality of life that is rewarding, dignified, and fulfilling.