Mission Impact: Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits (The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series) [Hardcover]

Robert M. Sheehan Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2010 | Series: The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series (Book 184)

Create powerful strategies for your nonprofit organization to achieve breakthrough performance in mission impact

Does your nonprofit have a reliable way of knowing the impact its making? Beginning with an eye-opening discussion of what strategy is, Mission Impact: A Breakthrough Strategy for Nonprofits reveals how the process of strategy development should be designed with authoritative coverage of mission impact, vision, five year strategic stretch goals, strategy implementation, and management.

• Step-by-step guidance and practical tools
• Integrates the very best current thinking on performance and strategy available, drawing from both the corporate and nonprofit worlds
• Cutting-edge ideas presented in a user-friendly fashion

The deteriorating quality of life in our communities screams out for immediate action – for breakthrough improvement, not just incremental changes. Mission Impact: A Breakthrough Strategy for Nonprofits will lead you and your organization to achieve breakthrough performance for maximum mission impact.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Mission Impact Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits

It's time to jump-start your nonprofit's vision. Get your team working together more creatively and strategically. Create strategies that will lead it to breakthrough performance in mission impact.

Beginning with a discussion of exactly what strategy is, Mission Impact will empower you to design, develop, and implement breakthrough strategies that increase your nonprofit's mission impact and improve the quality of life for others—after all, that's why you're in "business," isn't it?

With an accompanying Web site supplying practical tools, this complete guide for designing and carrying out a strategy development process for your nonprofit organization will help you understand how to apply the concepts presented, with a fresh look at:

• Key steps a strategy development group goes through in creating a strategy

• How to create an aspirational vision that will guide your organization to breakthrough performance

• Five-year strategic stretch goals designed to catapult your organization toward its vision

• The issues senior management should consider as it implements strategy

• How to design a process to fit the needs of your organization

• The factors your organization should consider as it designs a strategy development process

Drawing from the author's more than thirty years of experience in the nonprofit world as a practitioner, academic, volunteer, and consultant, Mission Impact fuels strategic change, offering expert insight into how the process of strategy development will guide your nonprofit toward its desired future.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Mission Impact

"Mission Impact opens new doors to nonprofit professionals via the Strategic Development Process and cutting-edge concepts that can help produce targeted team results for committed stakeholders. It's like a playbook that champion football coaches use as a guide to gain team results and team victories."
—Gene Hoffman, President, Corporate Strategies International

"Devotees of Peter Drucker's The Five Most Important Questions will find practical examples and well researched and vivid examples of organizations that benefit from a 'mission accomplishment' approach to performance. Sheehan's new work will help each of us in the social sector to define and achieve Mission Impact and change lives."
—Susan Phillips Bari, President and CEO, Leader to Leader Institute

"I found Rob Sheehan's new book, Mission Impact, a practical guide to strategic and operational planning. It's not a theoretical treatise, thank goodness, but an essential step-by-step process to help the nonprofit CEO or board work through and develop a game-changing strategic plan."
—Edward F. Leonard, PhD, President, Bethany College

"Mission Impact provides a 'systems-thinking approach' to moving your organization forward. This step-by-step approach takes an intuitive and creative process and makes it a road map to success."
—Jan K. Pruitt, President and CEO, North Texas Food Bank

"Rob Sheehan reminds us to lead change and be aspirational with our vision. Far too often in these difficult times we retreat to the safety of what we've always done. In fact, now is the time for the exact opposite! Mission Impact shows you how to charge forward confidently. I recommend it to anyone running an organization that wants to meet the challenging needs facing us all."
—Bill Kitson, President and CEO, United Way of Greater Toledo

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 8, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470449802
• ISBN-13: 978-0470449806
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #596,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert M. Sheehan, Jr., Ph.D.

Rob Sheehan is the Academic Director of the Executive MBA program at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is also a lecturer in the Department of Management and Organization. In this capacity, he directs the academic aspects of the Executive MBA and teaches in the program. He also assists with custom-designed executive education programs for various client organizations.

Rob also is principal of Sheehan Consulting, where he provides consulting services in strategy development and implementation, leadership and teamwork development, board development, and succession planning for nonprofits, businesses, and government entities. For more information: www.SheehanNonprofitConsulting.com

His background and experiences have included serving as CEO of LeaderShape, Inc., a nonprofit that provides ethics-based leadership programs to young adults, from 1992 to 2001. And he served as CEO of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity and Alpha Sigma Phi Educational Foundation from 1981 to 1990. From 2001 to 2004 he served as Director of Executive Education at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park.

He received his master's degree (1989) and PhD (1994) from The Ohio State University. While at Ohio State he directed the Excellence in Philanthropy research project, which became the basis for his dissertation, Mission Accomplishment as Philanthropic Organization Effectiveness. His BA is from Westminster College, PA (1979).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eyes on the prize August 5, 2010

By D. C. Dreger

Format:Hardcover

Robert Sheehan has developed a strategy creation process that is both simple and complex. In its simplicity, the process calls for an organization to determine mission performance indicators, uncover mission gap, draw up an aspirational vision, plan stretch goals, and focus a strategy to close mission gap quickly. It's complex because it involves boards and staffs, other stakeholders and even consultants in a diligent, soul-searching manner.

Sheehan has distilled concepts and principles from Block, Carver, Deming and Herman to Kotter, Kouzes, Senge and Welch and many other thinkers and doers. While this might make it seem to lean toward being an academic treatment, it is far from it. Amid the clear straightforward language are samples of real-world applications through recurring views of agencies concerned with hunger, housing and literacy.

In addition, Sheehan has constructed a workbook to organize processes and compel progress. It's divided into three sections: 20-pages of worksheets, an example of a completed process and a list of resources for further investigation and application. With this kind of guidance, you can set your strategy for excellence and grab the brass ring.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great new planning resource January 6, 2011

By Julie W. Capell

Format:Hardcover

This is a wonderful book that lays out the strategic planning process in a simple and understandable manner, making it a good choice for someone who is new to the science/art of planning. Having said that, I hasten to add that there are tons of new ideas and ways of looking at planning in here which make this book a great choice for a seasoned professional like myself. A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to facilitate my 20th or 30th strategic planning process, I found this book and decided to read it to see if I could get any new inspiration. I was able to read the whole thing in just one day, and it really did the trick. The concepts in the book fit in well with my usual logic model process while at the same time triggering lots of great new ideas. I particularly appreciated the real-life examples used to illustrate the different phases of the process. I used many of the ideas with my client just last night and am happy to report the planning session went splendidly. Thanks for a great new resource.