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Introduction
Strategy is about making choices.
While passion for advancing good in the world is essential for non-profit work, translating that passion into concrete social impact depends on a variety of choices on how to achieve good.
Dilemmas about which audiences to serve, which problems to solve, and which offerings to prioritize are common to the non-profit sector. If the decisive factor in taking on a new audience or activity is passion, however, a non-profit is vulnerable to losing focus and diluting its impact with every decision it makes.
This is exacerbated among committee-led organizations where, in the absence of clear criteria for what to accept or reject, the group will find it difficult to enforce discipline when a new project has a few enthusiasts backing it.
An independent advisor can be especially effective in such cases, as Algebra’s partnership with the Global Association of Islamic Schools (GAIS) has evidenced.
Discovery
From aspiration to an actionable strategy
GAIS had set an admirable vision for itself: “to co-create the future of Islamic education by uniting and empowering the K to 12 Islamic school community”. When it came to selecting which audiences to serve and which activities to pursue, however, it was paralyzed by conflicting views among its volunteer members. There was no clear path from the nascent organization’s aspirations to an actionable strategy.
The discovery process also revealed that the organizational form that GAIS envisaged—to be an international umbrella organization for Islamic school associations—was only one choice from several possibilities. Perhaps guided by their own membership in school associations, the founding members of GAIS simply assumed that an association of associations was the logical next step for international collaboration. (Spoiler alert: it’s not.)
Reviewing GAIS’ key decisions to date was a challenging process. Focusing on the needs of its selected audiences (rather than its own desire to do good) and considering how each of its decisions might fit together as a coherent strategy (instead of a laundry list of planned activities) pushed the GAIS leadership team beyond its comfort zone. The result, however, was a clear and actionable strategy.
Methodology
From chaos to clarity
Running an independent process requires extricating an organization from both its decisions to date and the decision-making processes that led to them.
The Algebra project team deliberately broadened its sources of input before presenting GAIS with new choices:
- Individual calls with steering committee and strategy committee members allowed for anonymous, frank input while also revealing the organization’s interpersonal dynamics.
- An internal survey allowed the team to systemize and aggregate the individual input in a form that could be shared anonymously with the wider group.
- Benchmarking GAIS against other non-profit actors (both Islamic non-profits and educational non-profits) helped outline the choices (and gaps) in the wider marketplace. Seeing other organizations at work helped GAIS imagine new possibilities.
- An external survey (with Muslim educators and strategy professionals curated by Algebra) helped GAIS test its vision, strategy, and messaging to see how well it might resonate with future stakeholders.
- Armed with these insights, Algebra facilitated two in-person workshops with the GAIS leadership in order to make key choices and confirm next steps.
Diversifying the sources of input enabled the Algebra project team to gain a better understanding of GAIS before endorsing any new decisions. It also generated the data necessary to equip GAIS to make better choices.
"You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.”
Roger L. Martin
Strategy
Playing to Win
Algebra adapted Roger Martin’s “Playing to Win framework in its work with GAIS, illustrated here as a cascade of four interlinking choices.
Non-profits often have an answer to the first question (“What is our winning aspiration”) in the form of a vision, mission or purpose statement. Too often, this statement is not then connected with the subsequent questions, each of which is interlinked and therefore reinforces each other (hence the arrows flowing back and forth between the boxes).
According to Martin, the heart of strategy is a good match between “Where will we play?” and “How will we win?”. In Algebra’s work with GAIS, the where-to-play choices that the project team focused on were getting the audience, sector, geography, and service offering right. The how-to-win choice that the team focused on was the specific value proposition that would appeal to paying members or donors, making the non-profit’s work fundable and sustainable.
In a three-day workshop with Algebra, GAIS narrowed down its playing field and refocused its efforts on a coherent proposition for its most important stakeholders. After multiple rounds of discussion interspersed with activity worksheets in smaller break-out groups, an actionable strategy emerged.
“Algebra successfully brought about convergence at a time when some members had entrenched perspectives.”
Edris Khamissa (Founding Member, GAIS)
“What stood out to me was the professionalism and the preparation that went into bringing this workshop together. Also, the patience with which the various delegates with different backgrounds without fixed hierarchies were made to work together as a team.”
Dr. Syed Misbahuddin (Member, Steering Committee, GAIS)
Outcomes
By working with Algebra at each step of the process, GAIS achieved the following outcomes
- Agreement on what not to do
- Agreement on what to do in the near term in the form of a high-level strategy plan
- Templates to complete detailed action plans for the areas of focus
- An agreed process to review the two-year strategy plan and on what to explore in the medium to long-term
Here is a glimpse of some of the key decisions GAIS made in Dubai:
Afterword
From initial Zoom calls to in-person workshops in Dubai and Durban, Algebra’s engagement with GAIS has matured into a long-term partnership. Following the adoption of the new strategy plan, GAIS has engaged Algebra as an ongoing advisor on the organization’s strategy, governance, branding and marketing.
