Federal Resources
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) – Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC): Strategic Planning Toolkit
The Strategic Planning Toolkit is intended to function as a guide for you to use throughout the strategic planning process. The Toolkit offers guidelines you can follow and tools and resources for you to draw on at every step. The Toolkit is organized to help you both learn about the planning process and use the process. It is broken into six sections that correspond to the six steps in strategic planning. The Toolkit can benefit any victim services organization – at the state or local level – that wants to assess where it wants to go in the future.
State Resources
Arizona Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) – Managing for Results Handbook (Rev. 1998)
The strategic planning handbook was developed as a user-friendly guide with non-technical language, numerous examples, and helpful checklists. The Handbook is intended to serve as a reference document to aid Arizona's state agencies to apply the concepts of strategic planning.
California State Department of Finance – Strategic Planning Guidelines (Rev. May 1998)
Strategic Planning Guidelineshas been prepared to assist agencies in understanding the strategic planning process. After addressing the overview of what planning is, the guidelines provide a framework to help an agency to develop its own strategic plan and to define performance measures that emphasize meaningful results. It is intended to serve as a continuing reference document for agencies.
North Carolina Office of State Personnel (OSP) – Strategic Planning Page
This resource provides excellent online materials regarding the strategic planning process. Although not written for the SAA audience the materials are general enough to be valuable to any strategic planning effort in government.
Other Resources
Alliance for Non-profit Management – Business Planning for Nonprofits: Why, When – and How It Compares to Strategic Planning (January 2005)
This document offers perspectives about why and when business planning makes sense for a non-profit organization overall, not just for the business enterprise that represents part of what a non-profit does. The Alliance for Non-profit Management offers comparisons of business planning to strategic planning, examples illustrating the value of planning that uses a business approach, and resources for capacity-building practice.
Bridgespan Group – Strategic Planning Search Results
Bridgespan is a consulting firm specializing in helping nonprofit organizations, frequently with strategic planning efforts. Their website has many well written, accessible case studies of strategic planning efforts in the non-profit sector.
CIVICUS – Strategic Planning Toolkit
This toolkit provides a model for taking an organization through a strategic planning process. It covers planning to do strategic planning, covering the background issues that need to inform or direct the strategic planning process, and then defining the strategic framework for the project or organization activities. It is this strategic framework that gives the activities coherence and direction. Practical exercises are included to use during a strategic planning process. The toolkit expands on the short introduction to strategic planning in the toolkit on Overview of Planning.
CompassPoint Non-profit Services – Non-profit Genie (FAQs): Strategic Planning
CompassPoint Non-profit Services is an organization that works to build the capacity of non-profit organizations. This website is mainly geared toward non-profits, but does have some good articles on strategic planning in their Non-profit Genie FAQ section. The articles there are nuts and bolts of strategic planning so will apply beyond the non-profit sector and have some relevance to government.
International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) – Strategic Planning: Building Police-Community Partnerships in Small Towns (Summer 2006)
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded the development of a Best Practices Guide for Smaller Police Departments. Within this document the subsection Strategic Planning: Building Strong Police-Community Partnerships in Small Towns provides a good resource for scalable strategic planning.
Print Resources
Bryson, John. Strategic Planning for Public and Non-profit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004.
Moore, Mark. Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Osborne, David and Plastrik, P., 2000. The Reinventor’s Fieldbook: Tools for Transforming Your Government. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Steiner, George A. Strategic Planning: What Every Manager Must Know A Step-by-Step Guide. New York: The Free Press, 1979.
Thompson, Arthur A. and Strickland, A. J. III. Strategy and Policy: Concepts and Cases. Dallas: Business Publications, Inc., 1978.
