Guest Bio:
Emily Taylor works with nonprofit leaders who are ready to catapult their organizations into their next stage of growth by shifting their decision-making from intuitive to intentional. Leaders who seek Emily’s expertise are not only frustrated with the typical strategic planning process but don’t feel fully informed to make big, long-term decisions. Instead, she first grounds the organization in ‘who they are’ to help them prioritize the challenges that lie ahead.
To achieve this, Emily applies her individualized strategic listening methodology with an organization's community, allowing teams to 'see their value' and align their decision-making as an organization, not just the CEO. She helps them find a planning process that fits their needs, not something that is out of the box, which is why most organizations get frustrated with strategic planning!

Important Links and Resources:
Emily Taylor: 
Paper on pre-strategic planning:

Related Episodes:
Episode 21: Investing in the next generation of nonprofit leaders with Andy Robinson
Episode 60: Why bother doing strategic planning?
Episode 70 Values Based nonprofit strategic planning
Episode 90 Five steps to successful nonprofit strategic planning with Carol Hamilton

Click "Read More" for a transcript​ of the interview

As a nonprofit executive director or leader, you know what you believe to be true about your organization. What its strengths and challenges are, its areas for growth and assets to build on. But what about others involved in your organization, like board members, staff and community members? Does your assessment align? 

When you are part of the organization’s leadership, your take on how things are going may be quite different from line staff and others further away from decision-making circles. It can also be challenging to get candid feedback from those below you in the organizational structure.

​One way to learn where you are on the same page and where the gaps are is to complete a nonprofit organization assessment.

​A nonprofit organizational assessment is a third party assessment of your organization, gathering feedback from all your key stakeholders. The goal of the process is to get an accurate assessment of a nonprofit organization's current state. Any organizational assessment will be a snapshot in time synthesizing the feedback of stakeholders. With the final report in hand, you will be able to make better informed decisions about what your key next steps are for your organization.

​Making the time to engage in a comprehensive nonprofit organizational assessment with a stakeholder analysis gives you the opportunity to get feedback from all your stakeholders and get a 360 perspective on your organization. Working with a consultant to conduct the assessment will ensure that you get more candid feedback. Stakeholders will be more likely to share perspectives with someone outside the organization more directly and frankly. A comprehensive nonprofit organizational assessment provides a rigorous process for getting those views out in the open. Conducting one in-house may mean that you only learn what people think you want to hear.

Conducting a thorough organizational assessment with a focus on stakeholder analysis is a vital practice that sheds light on the multifaceted perceptions of those who interact with your organization at various levels. This is one of the reasons it is considered good practice among high performing organizations.

​Eight key areas of focus for an overall organizational assessment are your organizational culture, perceptions of your organization’s strengths and areas for strengthening and growth, the workings of your board of directors, staff and volunteer experience and engagement, how decisions are made, as well as stakeholders’ aspirations for the future. Based on conversations with your organizational leadership, there may be additional areas of inquiry that are pertinent at the particular time of the assessment.

The initial step to conducting an organizational assessment is to map out your organization’s stakeholders. Who has a stake in your organization’s future? Who are the people and/or groups of people who care about your organization and its mission? These likely include staff and your board of directors at a minimum. Also included are volunteers, those you serve or support, donors, funders, other organizations that you partner with, other related organizations that provide complementary programs to yours, government agencies, policy makers, the community you are situated within and others.

​Mapping out the ecosystem of people and organizations engaged with your nonprofit provides you with a picture of the network of stakeholders who can help you succeed in pursuing your purpose. In this process, you may also identify individuals and groups who are not yet connected with your organization that could be helpful in achieving your mission.

​Engaging stakeholders to gather input could happen in a variety of ways. These include 1-1 interviews, focus groups and surveys. The exact combination of approaches will depend on the focus of the assessment as well as the scope of the organization.

​Having a consultant conduct 1-1 interviews as part of the organizational assessment provides stakeholders with a confidential and safer space to share their perspectives. Interviews may vary in focus and length depending on the stakeholders.

​When a consultant facilitates focus groups for your organization, you can hear from a larger group of people that represent a segment of your stakeholders. Those participating in the focus group will learn about their counterparts’ perspectives and conversation may be generated during the focus group as people participating build on each other’s ideas. Participants may be more reticent to share their opinions in a group setting than 1-1.
Both interviews and focus groups provide the opportunity to follow up with additional clarifying questions as well as questions to dig deeper to gain more insight into the person/groups’ viewpoint. Thus, both these methods enable you to gain further insights into the lived experience of those participating.

Having a consultant design and conduct a survey for your organization, you can gather information from an even larger group of people. The survey can also be designed to gather input from a variety of stakeholders as the survey can be designed in a way to have certain questions only be answered by individuals who fit certain criteria. Surveys provide you with the opportunity to gather comparative and quantitative data.

​Drawbacks to surveys include possible lower response rates and the limited capacity to gather input in the respondent’s own words. Including too many open-ended questions in a survey will make it less likely that respondents answer or fully complete the survey. The length and complexity of the survey can also impact the response rate. In addition, it is not possible to follow up in the survey itself for clarification or elaboration as it is in an interview or focus group. Thus combining a survey with interviews and focus groups provides the opportunity to go deeper.

As part of the organizational assessment, you may choose to take a wider look at the community you are situated in and conduct a community assessment as well. Again, a stakeholder analysis, design of the inquiry, choice of methods (interviews, focus groups, surveys) would all be steps in the process.

Once an organizational assessment is complete, the consultant will share the synthesis of the input that has been gathered in a set of findings. Typically, this will happen as one or a series of facilitated sessions. This could include a cascade sharing the findings with leadership and then staff, board, and other stakeholders.

​Once the findings have been shared, the group will need to make meaning of it. You heard “what” in terms of the themes coming out of the feedback – and often – a set of recommendations from the consultant. What meaning do you make of this? What surprises you? What confirms what you were already thinking? What are the implications of these findings for your organization? What next steps or actions do you need to take based on the assessment? A nonprofit organizational assessment is the first step in a strategic planning process, so in deciding what your next steps are you may decide you are well positioned to engage in strategic planning for your next 3-5 years. 

Related posts:
Strategic planning process for nonprofits: 5 steps to a plan that supports your vision

Often people are surprised by the level of commonality and agreement within the findings. Though they may not yet have shared these thoughts and attitudes out loud with colleagues, they learn that others are thinking similar things to them. The assessment provides context and opportunity to get those views out in the open and on the table. It creates space to have conversations and discuss issues that may not emerge in the day to day running of your organization.

​When there are challenging issues to confront, having a consultant conduct the assessment and facilitate the dialogue about the findings provides a safer psychological space to have the hard conversation that needs to happen to make progress.

​Stakeholders engaged in the process of gathering data all need to hear something back about the process. You will likely share different levels of detail from the findings with different stakeholder groups. But it is critical to close the loop with anyone you involve in the process. One of the benefits of engaging stakeholders in an assessment is that it can strengthen the relationship with your organization. Yet if those stakeholders do not hear anything back about the results, it can actually have a detrimental impact on the relationship. Let them know highlights of what you heard and even more importantly what you plan to do based on the feedback.

The insights garnered from confidential interviews, dynamic focus groups, and comprehensive surveys, especially when guided by an external consultant, can unveil truths that may not surface in everyday internal communications. With candid feedback, facilitated by a consultant's neutral stance, nonprofits can navigate the delicate intricacies of internal and external expectations.  It's a process that fosters a culture of transparency, encourages inclusive dialogue, and strengthens the collective resolve to advance the mission.

​With the findings in hand, the real work begins—interpreting the 'what' to discern the 'so what' for your organization. This critical evaluation leads to the 'now what,' where the synthesis of feedback and recommendations propels informed decision-making. It's a moment for collective reflection, and a chance to align your nonprofit's trajectory with the genuine needs and aspirations of your stakeholders. As the assessment culminates and you translate the feedback into actionable insights, you tap into the collective wisdom and engagement of your stakeholders with every person linked to the nonprofit's vision. This isn't just about closing the feedback loop; it's about opening a gateway to continuous improvement and impactful change.