At TNC, we help organizations build strategic plans that reflect who they truly are, respond to the realities of the contexts they’re operating in, and support meaningful, capacity-aligned action.
We work with organizations navigating complexity, including multiple stakeholders, growing demand, limited resources, and deep accountability to the communities they serve. Our role is to help make sense of that complexity and translate it into strategies that do justice to both the work and the communities at its centre.
We have extensive experience working alongside non-profit and community-based organizations across a wide range of sectors, including mental health, substance use health, disability rights and support, youth engagement, gender-based violence, housing and homelessness, food security, and many others. We partner with a diverse range of organizations, including local community-based organizations, national and federated organizations, networks and collaboratives, academic institutions, and funders and foundations.
Our work is grounded in close collaboration with organizations and communities, and informed by an understanding of the broader systems that shape access, care, and outcomes. Across all of our work, we tailor our approach to each organization’s context, structure, scale, and capacity. We recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all process, and work closely with clients to design approaches that are thoughtful, practical, and responsive to their realities.
Please see Our Clients for examples of organizations we have partnered with.
Why work with TNC on strategic planning?
We’re focused on relationships.
Good strategy requires trust, clarity, and strong working relationships. We prioritize communication, transparency, and reciprocal partnerships, and we work in ways that respect both formal leadership and on-the-ground expertise.
We listen first.
We value deep listening as a core part of our strategic planning. Our planning processes begin with understanding lived experiences, organizational realities, and the constraints teams are working within, while also creating space to explore organizational aspirations and future states.
We promote equity and inclusion in our planning.
Equity shows up in who is engaged, how decisions are made, and which trade-offs are acknowledged. It requires being explicit about power, access, and constraints and designing processes that are transparent, inclusive, and accountable.
We are skilled facilitators in messy spaces and contexts.
We’re comfortable working in complex environments with competing priorities, diverse perspectives, and real tensions. We help groups move toward shared understanding and consensus while holding space for differences. We know “best practices” must be locally adapted.
We bring deep sector and systems knowledge.
We’ve been inside the non-profit world as practitioners, researchers, evaluators, and partners. We understand interventions, systems, sectors, and organizational change, and we can quickly grasp the context your organization is operating within. We have deep content knowledge across many areas of work.
We balance ambition with feasibility.
We care deeply about vision and capacity. A strong strategic plan should challenge an organization while remaining realistic and sequenced. We balance ambition with realism, helping organizations move forward in ways that are both meaningful and achievable. We also support implementation, coaching, and follow-through to make your plan a reality
We build flexible planning practices and actions.
We help organizations define progress and set accountability standards while creating flexibility for shared learning, reflection, and change over time.
We bring create clarity and a focus on utilization
We aim for shared understanding so people know what matters, why it matters, and how their work connects to the bigger picture. This leads to strategic plans that are useful and action-oriented. You’ll know not just what you’re doing, but why, how, and in what sequence.
We value creativity and innovation.
We’re drawn to thoughtful experimentation and creative approaches that fit your organization’s culture, resources, and goals.
Our Strategic Planning Process
The framework below reflects our general approach to strategic planning; our approach is never one-size-fits-all. We tailor each process to the organization’s context, goals, relationships, capacity, timelines, and operating realities. This includes adapting engagement methods, facilitation approaches, decision-making structures, and deliverables to ensure the process is meaningful, feasible, and responsive to the organization and communities involved.
Interested in learning more about strategic planning at TNC?
We’d be happy to continue the conversation! Contact us.