Strategic Planning For The Improvement Of The Development Efforts Of A Guatemalan Faith-Based Nongovernment Organization

During the past five years, substantial progress in development efforts has been made by the Association for Holistic Development “Saq B’e,” a faith-based nongovernment organization located in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and founded in 2005. The association was created to provide rapid and much-needed relief assistance and to address the effects of Hurricane Stan on local communities. Saq B’e has now expanded its operations to include community development and compassion and spiritual support programs and services. In order to improve these development efforts, Saq B’e recognized the need to produce a strategic plan to define priorities and action plans. This Capstone paper presents the steps taken in this strategic planning process leading to the development of a five-year strategic plan document.The strategic planning process selected placed a high premium on practicality, suitability, time, and resources. Worksheets were used to gather and generate most of the information. Other secondary inquiry methods were conference calls, virtual meetings, and revision of proposals and program plans.The process included an organizational and programs assessment, including an analysis of Saq B’e’s previous and current strategies, a SWOT—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats—analysis, an assessment of the organization’s management, the evaluation of current programs, and a summary of the organization’s situation. As a result, the strategic planning process developed a future program portfolio, core future strategies, and administrative, financial, governance, and program priorities, including goals and objectives, and a long-range financial projection. Finally, two logframes were designed, one for a Saq B’e core strategy, the other for one of its community development programs, both designed to help identify steps Saq B’e will need to take as it moves forward in its program development.