Originally published on Citizen IBM Blog

As a nonprofit striving to provide meaningful and high-value services to our beneficiaries, Mouse is glad to receive assistance that supports our mission – to empower youth to create with technology to make meaningful change in our world. Mouse increases diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields, and opens opportunities to young people from underserved communities.

Contributions of funds are welcome and greatly appreciated. But the Strategic Planning Impact Grant that we received from IBM in 2013 proved transformative to the way we operate. By sharing its expertise with our organization, IBM enabled us to augment and improve essential capabilities that make a real and sustainable difference in our ability to serve.

The purpose of the IBM grant was to help make our annual strategic planning process more productive. Two IBM volunteer experts led a series of meetings and follow-ups with our senior team to help us define and organize our strategic goals, tactical initiatives and projects. But unlike the proverbial “best laid plan” that gathers dust unread, the template and processes that IBM helped Mouse develop remain living guidelines in constant use.

Such in-depth work on process and organizational infrastructure is critical to the effectiveness (and sometimes the survival) of small nonprofits such as ours. We have only 15 staff. Most of us are creative professionals who produce cutting-edge curricular tools for after-school youth development. We do not have full-time staff members who can focus exclusively on developing and monitoring our strategic plan. How, then, do nonprofit organizations like ours create the thoughtful and viable strategic plans that are essential in an era of increasing demands and diminishing resources?

Mouse always has had a strategic mission and a considered approach to achieving it. But what the IBM Strategic Planning Workshop enabled us to do was plan more quickly and efficiently – using common terminology and performance indicators to communicate across our team and with outside funders and partners. As a result, we spend less time each year on planning, and more time on what really matters – delivering innovative programs to the young people we serve.

Though we received it two years ago, the IBM Strategic Planning Impact Grant has continued to deliver sustainable value to our organization. More effective strategic planning translates directly into more Mouse staff time spent helping young people develop what we call “technology with a purpose.” These young learners – typically from under-resourced urban communities – will be the tech-savvy employees and customers of the very near future. By sharing their strategic expertise with us, IBM has made it possible for Mouse to reach more young people around the country more effectively.

Daniel Rabuzzi is Executive Director of Mouse, a national youth development nonprofit that believes in technology as a force for good. The IBM Strategic Planning Service Grant awarded to Mouse was facilitated by IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Responsibility Manager Pamela Haas.