January 19, 2014
Personal/Professional Goals and Objectives (Do this first part if you plan on creating a proposal for an entity other than the Wildcat Wellness Center).
Complete the following strategic planning exercise for the nonprofit organization with which you plan to work. We will begin this exercise with having you articulate your own goals within the organization. What do you want to do and how do you see yourself fitting into the organization? Are your objectives and expectations in line with the organization’s goals and objectives?
Your position in the organization: Organizing and managing a grant and its funding for the Central Washington University Wildcat Wellness Center.
Your personal/professional goals in regard to the organization: To satisfy needs for the Central Washington Wildcat Wellness Center, as well as the needs of students who use this organization/program.
Your objectives in regard to the organization: Provide funding, as well as initiate positive and much needed change through an appropriate and effective program.
The Organization’s Strategic Plan
What are your organization’s goals and objectives to fulfill its mission? State the mission and overall goals for your organization. Then consider the objectives required by your organization to meet each of the goals. Remember, the mission is usually only one sentence long. The goals are usually limited to one to three one-sentence goal statements. Each goal usually has two to five objectives. Objectives should be measurable. Your organization’s objectives may be still pretty general, but when you write your proposal, you will have to make sure that your objectives meet a number of criteria that we will specify later in the quarter. Therefore, it is good to start thinking about the differences between goals and objectives.
Name of the organization: Wildcat Wellness Center
Mission of the organization: The mission of the Wellness Center is to promote positive health behaviors, prevent negative consequences associated with high-risk behavior, and encourage the social connections that support student success.
Goals of the organization: To educate Central Washington University’s students on issues regarding the misuse of alcohol, marijuana, and other substances as well as promote positive mental health and suicide prevention and healthy behaviors.
Objectives of the organization:
1) Improve performance
2) Minimize operating costs
3) Improve customer management/ marketing
Organizational Characteristics
What are the characteristics that demonstrate your organization’s ability to fulfill its mission? Reflect on those characteristics, such as leadership, staff, expertise, assets and financial resources that your organization possesses. List these characteristics in order of importance and discuss their relevance to achieving the organization’s mission.
Leadership and management: There is a management system in place in the Wellness Center, which helps in regards to organizing and implementing new programs.
Staff, volunteers, technical experts: THere is a staff that is able to help and has a variety of strengths and education levels. There is also an asset in the sense that some of the students work in this organization, which also happens to be the intended customer.
Physical assets: Have a building that is easily accessible and passed by many students multiple times a day. The facility is however quite small., which can limit the amount of students who can access faculty or other persons at one given time.
Financial resources: Some budgeting through the school.
Recognition: (the reputation of your organization) Are you known in your region? Nationally? What noteworthy achievements has your organization accomplished?
The organization is known in the community of CWU, and presumably the community. It isn’t known on a National level.
Organizational Strengths or Advantages
What are the greatest strengths of your organization? List them in descending order of importance.
1. The location of the facility and it’s primary target customer are located in the same place.
2. The organization has other resources and funding from other areas as well.
3. Some of the staff is also part of the target customer which can help with marketing and implementing programs.
4. The Wellness Center is a well known organization to the CWU community.
5. A friendly staff is available all with the common goals in mind.
Organizational Problems or Weaknesses
What are the major problems, difficulties or obstacles that your organization faces? List them in descending order of importance. Every organization has difficulties or problems. To solve these you have to identify them and view them as opportunities to make the organization better by overcoming them. (It is often from this list that ideas for proposals emerge.)
1. Marketing is not as effective as it could be, resulting in many people not being aware of their purpose or programs.
2. Funding can be hard to manage while implementing new programs.
3. The facility is somewhat restricting creating a smaller space to provide services to the students.
4. Some areas of interest in regards to health are not as informative as one could hope.
Proposed Organizational Activities
What activities or projects could your organization undertake to capitalize on its strengths and/or overcome some of its weaknesses? (In many cases one of these activities will become your project idea that you will be seeking funding for and writing a proposal about.) Note that proposal topics often emerge from a desire to overcome some organizational weakness which will better enable the organization to meet its goals and mission and serve its target population. Often project ideas come from looking at the problems the organization’s stakeholders or constituents have. Designing a project can help to solve these problems. You will want to design a project that is within the scope of the organization’s mission and objectives.
Project idea 1:
Project idea 2:
Project idea 3:
For which of these ideas do you want to find funding? Make this decision in consultation with people from your organization. This is the idea that you will use as the basis for your need statement and for your proposal for the course.
Undecided on project ideas.
