Q & A with Brett Bernardini, Executive Director, Stissing Center for Arts and Culture

A strategic plan will not give you a future, but it can be the essential living partner that informs and guides your future. 

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of facilitating a strategic planning process for the Stissing Center for Arts and Culture in Pine Plains, New York. The Stissing Center is a community-based arts and cultural organization established in 2017, opening its doors in 2019. Located in a rural town with a population of 2,400, the Center has three community-centered goals: first, to create a place where people of all ages can engage in creative and cultural activities; second, to invigorate Main Street and create economic vitality for Pine Plains and the Hudson Valley; and third, to promote individual achievement and leadership in rural America.

There is an inspiring backstory about how the Stissing Center came to be, including saving a 1915 memorial hall building from demolition, a laundromat, community empowerment and engagement, and tireless visionaries. However, I will leave that for another day!

Brett was appointed Executive Director in late 2022. He came to the position with an extensive career leading performing arts organizations nationwide. I was curious to learn how having a strategic plan in place helped him transition into his new role.

AD:  Brett, as an incoming ED, how did the Stissing Center’s strategic plan help you align with the organization’s vision and goals?

BB:  A robust and well-executed strategic plan is critical to establishing an organization’s goals. It is a vital starting point for defining annual goals, metrics for achievement, and even budgeting goals.

AD:  In what ways did having a strategic plan in place facilitate a smoother transition as you assumed your new role and relationships with the staff and board?

BB: First, it gave all of us a common understanding of the starting point, priorities, and goals, as well as a sense of what the future might look like. It also gave us a menu of options for moving forward that we did not need to create; it was already done. Second, even before I was hired, the strategic plan gave me a much better understanding of how this organization understood its relationship to the community, how it saw the future, and the aspirations driving the decision-making processes. Third, as the new ED, the plan gave us all a common reference point for exploring the future, approaching budgeting priorities, and setting annual goals.

AD: Do you think the strategic plan helped you set priorities and allocate resources early in your tenure?

BB:  Budgeting in the nonprofit sector has always been problematic. As organizations tend to live in a scarcity mindset, their budgets are “reactive” rather than “proactive.” Most nonprofit budgets do not tell stories of impact and growth, nor do they address the future strategically and thoughtfully.

Having a strategic plan in place made the first year of budgeting a simple statement: “These are your stated priorities; this is what they will cost next year.” Period. Easy. Without a strategic plan already in place, that initial ED year is a matter of “placeholding” without any sense of direction: finding the operational lay of the land can often exclude any sense of visioning or planning, meaning that that first-year budget is little more than a reiteration of the past: Zero growth, zero aspiration, zero sense of impact and no understanding of the future.

AD:  What haven’t I asked you that you think other organizations should know about implementing a strategic plan

BB:  The process is challenging, and if done well, it involves the input of many, many, MANY people. A consultant will help you create the plan, but they will not make it for you! You must step into the creation process with an open mind to the myriad of thoughts, ideas, and aspirations you will discover. You need to set aside your own ideas of what the future can be in exchange for the vibrant and engaging thoughts of others.

Second, a strategic plan will not answer your questions about the future. It will open endless possibilities about what your future might be. It will offer you critical insights that can inform your decisions about the future. It will challenge you to abandon institutional thinking where it is ossified in exchange for something more dynamic and fluid.

Finally, a strategic plan is never done. Far too often, nonprofits’ strategic plans fill notebooks, sit on shelves, and dissolve into memory: “Remember when we did that?!”  If you’re going to spend precious financial resources to create a strategic plan with no plan on how to use it as a guidepost for planning, board meetings, goals, budgeting, etc., and if you have no committee dedicated to keeping this work at the forefront of your decision-making process (a committee who lives, breathes, eats, sleeps strategic plan), then save your money. Funding the creation of a strategic plan with no forward thinking on how it will become an essential north star in your organization’s future is like buying a car without a license: a nice status symbol but a significant waste of time and money.

A strategic plan will not give you a future, but it can be the essential living partner that informs and guides you to your future.