The ELGL Board of Directors and staff recently completed our first-ever three year strategic plan and now we are looking for ELGL member feedback.
Huge thanks to ELGL member Jordan Lester for guiding the board and staff through a process to get this draft plan on paper for our membership’s review.
The Google Document is linked for your comments on the draft; these concepts will be incorporated in the final draft for adoption by the Board.
Strategic Planning Process
The first step in this strategic plan was to understand the current status of the ELGL organization and where we want to see ELGL go.
ELGL’s mission was already in place, but by developing a vision and goals, we have created a more comprehensive roadmap to guide ELGL into the future.
This strategic plan shares ELGL’s six central commitments and associated goals. Together, these commitments and goals build the foundation for the future.
Strategic Plan Timeline
The scope of this plan will cover ELGL’s fiscal years 2020, 2021, and 2022 (July 2019 – June 2021). We will incorporate the vision, mission and goals established in this document into future long-range planning tools.
Why is ELGL Working on a Strategic Plan?
As ELGL has grown from a 16-person lunch bunch, to a 4,800 member organization, we know that defining our path for over the next three years is important if we want to continue to provide exceptional service to local government.
To do this, we’ve defined our vision for the organization:
ELGL is indispensable for local government.
Our mission statement is:
ELGL engages the brightest minds in local government.
We define how we do this with six strategy statements:
- Providing timely, relevant, real content
- Fostering authentic, meaningful connections
- Promoting equity and inclusion
- Encouraging joy in public service
- Welcoming new ideas and technology
- Creating exceptional membership value
The last strategy statement, “creating exceptional membership value” is new this year and was added to capture our goal of efficiency and effectiveness.
This information, plus a preamble, status report on where we are as an organization, and action items for the next three years are included in the linked draft.
We’re now looking for member feedback on these areas before the Board of Directors adopts the plan for ELGL’s ongoing use. As with all ELGL things, we want you to dig into this plan and offer your ideas and suggestions.
Everything is fair game – you can wordsmith, you can propose bold new action items – whatever you think this plan needs to capture the spirit of ELGL and where the organization is headed.
Once the Board has received your comments, they’ll incorporate into a final draft for adoption. We’re also working with ClearPoint Strategy to put this strategic plan into a reporting and tracking software and we’ll show that off via quarterly reports so members can keep up with all of the awesome things that ELGL is working on. This aligns with our organizational values of transparency and accountability.