Assignment Problem:
You serve as the executive director for a local nonprofit organization in your city that serves the needs of homeless veterans in the community. Your organization has decided to engage in strategic planning in order to improve some of the processes associated with maintaining relationships built between volunteer workers and the organization. Over the last year, 75% of volunteers were "one-offs," and everyone would like to see more consistent service from interested parties and people.
Before developing a strategy to update the communications and outreach processes, it is important to consider the areas below.
There are a large number of ex-homeless veterans who make up the vast majority of your organization's consistent volunteer base. Although they are happy to assist their fellow veterans, there is an obvious degree of burnout occurring as more events and low, inconsistent staffing has resulted in almost all of the burden being placed on these volunteers. As such, there are slight but obvious pressures for quick, tangible changes to be made in involved areas.
Your organization's advisory board shares some of the same priorities as your volunteer group; however, two of the board members are close with state representatives, and there is pending legislation that will require special training (two 3-hour seminars on separate weekends) for those looking to volunteer with certain specified populations (veterans being one of the probable populations). Because of this, the advisory board is already pushing for all volunteers, existing and prospective, to register for the seminars.
Discuss the areas below:
A. The pros and cons of attempting to make a "big splash" to appease your organization's stakeholders in the establishment of new policy,
B. How the preferences of the advisory board would likely impact your strategy development process, and
C. How the stakeholder interests and advisory board priorities differ and how these differences could be resolved or compromised.