Soccer for All: Developing Strategic Goals for a Portland Non-Profit

Opportunity

A local nonprofit that provides high-quality, affordable club soccer to low-income, immigrant, and refugee youth needed help with their 5 year strategic plan to implement their goals of expanding and providing additional services to their members. 

They believe that every child deserves the opportunity to participate in an organized, first-rate soccer club regardless of their family’s income level and are committed to creating a truly welcoming environment. The organization takes a unique approach in that they do not focus on just soccer, but also focus on the community they are in and how to support them in times of need. In addition to being accessible to athletes and families from low-income communities, they also found the opportunity to make sure that athletes, coaches, and families from the LGBTQ community had a place to feel welcome and accepted. As an example of their dedication to the community, during the start of Covid, they began a food box program for the families in their community and have made it a permanent part of their offerings.

Solution

Pepper Foster led the nonprofit’s Board of Directors in a series of three workshops, taking them from strategy to execution:

1. Brainstorming - facilitated a meeting with stakeholders to understand where the organization was now, what their vision for the future is, and what challenges they were facing.
2. Identify Strategies - in between sessions, the Pepper Foster team met and identified themes that informed potential strategies for the organization to pursue. The second session was focused on ensuring alignment with those strategies and beginning to plan out the work needed to accomplish their goals. 
3. Execution - implementing a simple project management tool for the organization to use and measure progress toward their goals. The Pepper Foster team also provided education around how to prioritize projects as well as consider constraints.

Outcome

Eight strategies were identified to meet the nonprofit’s 5 year goals. Objectives for those strategies were identified and broken down into manageable pieces. A timeline was created and project planning for the first year began using the new project management tool. 

A month after implementation, the nonprofit was successfully using the project management tool to execute on their goals and objectives. 

In addition, Pepper Foster was able to use this engagement as a template on how to bring simple, time bound, strategy planning wins and tools to community organizations. We look forward to working with more nonprofits in the future. 

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