Mindful of the future: Strategic planning ideology and the culture of nonprofit management

The widespread use of strategic planning (SP) by nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the U.S, may be attributable in part to the professional culture of nonprofit management rather than SP's efficacy as a management technique. Nonprofit management emerged as a profession in the 1980s, a decade after business theorists began losing confidence in SP. SP advocates helped shape the new profession's culture by promoting SP and its basic tenets (ideology) as fundamental for organizational success. The experience of nonprofit managers in southeastern Michigan (1982-1990) illustrates this process. Some NPOs did benefit from SP. In cases where they did not, the professional culture encouraged users to blame faulty execution rather than question the validity of the technique. Today the profession still endorses variations of SP as "best practice." The discussion recommends that applied anthropologists and other management advisors consider first whether the NPO's customary style of decision making (an aspect of its organizational culture) can be adapted to formulate wiser decisions about the future. If so, adopting SP may be unnecessary and even counterproductive.