Building A Smart Plan That Helps Young People Fulfil Their Potential.
Do you ever take a moment to stop and think about what you’d like to achieve in life? Maybe you allow yourself a half formed thought on New Year’s Day, but then it’s back to your busy routine, meeting all the demands and expectations of those around you.
If a roadmap to success is arguably useful for individuals, it is definitely vital for organisations.
Western Chances’ Strategic Plan was about to finish in 2019 and the organisation wanted to re-consider how it could best work towards its vision that, “Young people who are facing financial barriers achieve their potential.”
Western Chances helps young people in Melbourne’s west by providing scholarships, opportunity programs, and ongoing support. The organisation partners with talented and motivated young people to enable them to thrive.
As CEO, Rhyll Dorrington, says, “The plan had expired and we wanted to keep the momentum rolling. We wanted a clear strategic direction over five years and we wanted more measurable goals and objectives. It’s good timing, because we’ve matured as an organisation so we needed a different plan. It’s important to have clarity; it benefits our recipients, the young people, but also our board and staff.”
Since its establishment in 2004 the successful organisation has grown and responded to new demands and opportunities. Rhyll says, “There were parts of the business that had happened organically such as excellent opportunities for our young people we couldn’t say no to! And so we needed more clarity around those areas. The organisation had morphed into providing a holistic approach rather than just scholarships; it had expanded into other opportunities, like offering job seeking advice and connections.”
The organisation has been laying good foundations over the last sixteen years. Rhyll says, “We’ve achieved a huge amount for a small organisation. We’ve got the right staff, a great reputation, solid systems and process, and now we need to think more about the big picture.”
Rhyll continues, “We had clarity around our new vision which has sharpened our focus. In terms of how we were getting there, we needed a few more big, audacious, ambitious goals.”
The solution was to engage Midnightsky to help Western Chances write a five-year Strategic Plan that allows the organisation to make clear decisions, measure its progress, and become a sustainable organisation.
The project involved separate workshops with key stakeholders including staff, volunteers, alumni, recipients, nominators, and, of course, board. Multiple workshops meant that more important voices, in addition to staff and board, could be included in the conversation. Rhyll says, “We’d always included staff and board in previous strategic planning. But this was a stand-out approach and not something we’d done before.”
This inclusive approach is fundamental to the organisation’s values. At the heart of Western Chances are the partnerships with young people. The organisation builds their capacity and empowers them to achieve their dreams and goals.
The stakeholder workshops proved valuable in many ways. Their feedback confirmed that Western Chances is doing great work, and they also gave the organisation new ideas and potential new approaches.
The workshops also gave the organisation the opportunity to inform the stakeholders. Rhyll says, “Through that process we helped them to have a greater understanding of our work and the challenges that we face. You could see a few lightbulb moments. The deeper stakeholder engagement meant that we brought them all along with us.”
The stakeholder feedback was included in the board workshops’ preparation material. Rhyll says, “That was really insightful, useful and crucial for the board. It’s now hard to imagine doing strategic planning sessions without it.”
Rhyll continues, “During the workshops Luke was good at challenging the board to think bigger but also stay focused on the same goal and think about those audacious goals. Luke’s a good listener but he also challenged the thinking when we needed it. He asked probing questions that provoked thoughtful discussions. And he stopped us from going around in circles, or going down rabbit holes!”
Clear strategic decisions were made in the two board workshops. Everyone agreed on the parameters of what a ‘young person’ means for the organisation. After much deliberation on the organisation’s geographic reach, the board decided to keep its focus for the next five years in Melbourne’s west.
And there was a shift towards further empowering the Alumni. Rhyll adds, “We want to support the Alumni to deliver opportunities through their program. It makes sense for them to drive the program, and this will also feed into the sustainability of the organisation. That is going to help us achieve our goals and vision.”
Over six months of rigorous and thoughtful research, listening, discussion and writing, a new robust Strategic Plan was developed.
Rhyll says, “It’s a much tighter plan with clear goals and measurable KPIs that’s going to help the team and the Board to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to opportunities. It makes a difference to how you report back to the board and the way that everyone articulates the vision and purpose. Everyone’s on the same page.”
Rhyll continues, “This plan will help formalise our best practice scholarship model and holistic approach. Ours is a tailor-made scholarship model. Working to the plan gives us a point of difference to other scholarship programs.”
Nearly at the end of 2020, Rhyll says, “The plan has withstood the pandemic. Even with all the changes of this year, the plan is still robust and it’s ready to go with some financial tweaking. It holds firm.”
Rhyll adds, “We’re excited about building a corpus and becoming sustainable. Our vision is about young people fulfilling their potential, they can only do that if Western Chances is fulfilling its potential.”
by Cressida Bradley