Strategic Planning – step by step

What is this training course about?

We recognized the importance of regular strategic planning and that knowledge and skills for it are missing in youth organisations and in employees/members/volunteers. There are many NGOs from our communities that don’t have a clear strategic plan and there are some who have it but they are lengthy and hard-to-understand documents that mostly gather dust on office shelves. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our daily youth work was significant and it urged us to adjust, rethink and regroup is one of the reasons we need to go through the process of Strategic planning. 

What will the TC look like?

The themes and objectives of this project will be put into practice through the following daily activities: Ice-breaking and Getting to know each other; Regular energizers; Programme sessions; Intercultural evening/Optional evening sessions; Daily evaluation/reflection rounds. The whole concept of the training course is designed according to the mutual agreement of all partner organizations in the project. All the sessions have been developed on the basis of non-formal educational methods. There will be a fair mixture of theory and practice as participants will get to know input and background of for example Stakeholders analysis, SWOT, PESTLE, Portfolio analysis, Prioritisation exercise and will have the opportunity to use right away that new input practising it as steps of strategic planning under the guidance of the trainers. So, they will go through the theory of every step of the strategic planning process and work in groups on applying it and analysing their own organisations. 

All participants will receive Youthpass certificate. 

Aim and objectives of the TC

The aim of this project is to empower our members and youth workers, raising their knowledge and skills level in the field of Strategic planning; to produce during this project 5 Strategic planning documents, one for each of the partner organization; to strengthen the partnership between our organization and produce new projects on a European level so we can continue to support each other, educate our youth workers and grow together.

Objectives of the training course:

• To enhance cooperation between our youth workers and organizations 
• To improve our local and international teamwork by getting to know stages of group development and how to communicate in an assertive and effective way 
• To share info about our organizations, their visions, missions and values 
• To get to know the importance of Strategic planning process and how and why it can benefit our organizations 
• To provide youth workers with practical tools of Strategic planning which they will be able to use in the future and which will contribute to their professional development and also to organizations’ development 
• To explore Erasmus+ programme as a tool that can help to achieve objectives of our Strategic planning 
• To reflect on the experience of the learning process using the Youthpass certificate and frame of 8 key competences

Pre-training course tasks for participants / preparation for the training course and follow-up requirement: 

For the preparation of the activity, participants need to:

• Enrol and complete preparatory on-line course;
• Gather relevant documents about the mission, values, objectives and strategic plan of your organisation, and translate the documents in English;
• To present the main activities and projects of their organization, and also to share some examples of good practice.

Follow-up: 

• To organise and implement Local Planning Workshops after the training course (with the support of your sending organisation). Goals of the Local Planning Workshops. Local Planning Workshops need to engage 5 to 10 people, involving people necessary to produce a Strategic plan for each organization. On the Local Planning Workshop, participants from the training course will lead the workshops, share all the tools and process of strategic planning from the training course, and in the end, each partner organisation will produce their own Strategic plan.

COVID-19 INFORMATION: 

The organisers will follow the development of the ongoing pandemic and communicate all necessary information. The health and safety recommendations will be implemented: masks will be used when needed and necessary sanitising equipment will be provided. 

Costs of PCR tests will be covered by organisers (receipts required!). 

More information will be provided to the selected participants.