client. National Coalition on School Diversity
date. April 2022 - October 2022
location. Remote
role. Lead Facilitator, Strategist, and Project Manager at 3x3 Design
Situation and Objective:
Our team at 3x3 partnered with the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) to help guide them in their strategic planning process. The organization was seeking to reach alignment on co-creating (with internal staff, board members, and community members) a strategy and roadmap for the coalition for the next five years.
Process:
NCSD was seeking to advance the organization’s efforts and reframe the definition and approach to school integration in the 21st century. NCSD needed a plan that was responsive to a complex ever-changing political and social environment in the United States. Our team facilitated the process of unifying leadership, staff, board members and coalition members around a common vision. We aimed to ensure that the strategic plan was owned by people expected to implement it, and understood and supported by the people it supports and affects through integrating co-design practices.
We helped ground understanding of the value NCSD could bring through conducting a landscape assessment and utilizing a strengths-based approach. To collectively define key strategic priorities and align on the principles that will guide the strategy, we conducted a series of workshops with staff, leadership, board and coalition members, incorporating design-infused processes. As the lead strategist, I created research frameworks and conducted research, led the design of strategy sessions and workshops and led the writing of the strategic planning report.
Methods:
- appreciative inquiry
- ecosystem mapping
- surveys and informant interviews
- visioning exercises
- strategy workshops
- impact scenarios
- options development
- impact mapping
Outcome:
We co-produced the strategic plan that outlined the coalition’s strategy, unraveled insights and strategic considerations, along with an operational plan, budget and adaptive impact framework. NCSD has taken the strategic plan to implementation and invited our team into a second phase of work to further operationalize and test phases of the plan.