State of Strategic Thinking in Nonprofits (2025)

State of Strategic Thinking in Nonprofits (2025)
We’re exploring how nonprofits and social impact organizations practice “strategic fitness” in daily decisions.

This survey takes about 6–8 minutes. Responses will be reported in aggregate. We will not attribute quotes to individuals or specific organizations without explicit permission.

You’ll receive:
• A shareable benchmark report on strategic thinking habits
• A simple framework for understanding your “strategic fitness” archetype
• Practical quick wins you can apply right away

Please answer with one specific organization in mind (or client, if you’re a consultant). If you would like to assess multiple organizations, please complete multiple surveys.
Name*

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example@example.com
Strategic Fitness behaviors (12 items)

Think about how strategic decisions actually happen in the organization you have in mind. How often do the following behaviors occur for and within the organization overall? *

	1- Never	2 - Rarely	3 - Sometimes	4 - Often	5 - Always
Outcome Clarity 1. Before major decisions, we define the specific change we're trying to create and how we'll know if we've succeeded.
Prioritization Discipline 2. We explicitly decide what we will not do, and leaders protect those boundaries when new opportunities or pressures arise.
Systemic Diagnosis 3. When facing challenges, we trace how programs, operations, and external factors influence each other before acting.
Environmental Sensing 4. We actively monitor shifts in our external environment and revisit strategic assumptions when conditions change.
Scenario Consideration 5. Planning conversations seriously consider what could go wrong—not just our hoped-for outcome.
Stakeholder Anticipation 6. For major decisions, we identify key stakeholders early and anticipate how they'll respond and what they'll need.
Cross-Team Coordination 7. Teams actively coordinate across boundaries to advance strategic priorities, rather than working in silos.
Leadership Modeling 8. Leaders consistently demonstrate strategic thinking in their own decisions, not just in what they ask of others.
Strategy-Operations Connection 9. Strategic priorities visibly shape how teams spend their time week to week—not just during planning cycles.
Resource Alignment 10. Resources—time, staff, budget—are allocated to match strategic priorities, and reallocated when priorities shift.
Learning Integration 11. We examine what's working and what isn't—both mid-effort and after—and visibly act on what we learn.
Decision Momentum 12. Major decisions move forward in reasonable timeframes; we don't get stuck in extended analysis or deliberation.

	1 - Strongly disagree	2 - Disagree	3 - Neither agree nor disagree	4 - Agree	5 - Strongly agree	Don’t know / not enough visibility to say
Board and leadership meetings spend enough time on long-term strategy, not just operational updates and reports.
People generally understand who has the final say on major decisions (e.g., staff leadership vs Board) and when each is involved.
Leadership and the Board regularly review leading indicators (things that predict future performance), not just past results and outputs.
When major strategic decisions are on the table, the Board (or equivalent governing body) is involved early enough to shape direction, not just asked to approve a finished plan.
Leadership and the Board are willing to stop or scale back low-impact programs or activities, even when they are familiar or popular internally.
The organization has a regular cadence (for example, quarterly) for reviewing strategy, checking assumptions, and discussing possible future scenarios.
Decisions are clearly and promptly communicated to the organization

	1 – Strongly disagree	2 – Disagree	3 – Neither agree nor disagree	4 – Agree	5 – Strongly agree
Our strategic priorities are clear and well understood across the organization.
We make important strategic decisions quickly enough to seize opportunities.
We rarely have to redo major decisions or projects because of misalignment or lack of clarity.
Staff feel meaningfully involved in setting direction and making strategic decisions.
Our Board is confident in the organization’s strategy and decision-making.
Major strategic decisions are rarely reversed at the last minute because of Board or leadership concerns that surface too late.
When strategic proposals reach the Executive Director/CEO or Board level, they are decided or approved quickly, without long cycles of back-and-forth.
After Board or senior leadership strategy meetings, priorities and next steps are clear to the people who need to act on them.

State of Strategic Thinking in Nonprofits (2025)

Strategic Fitness behaviors (12 items)

Leadership & Governance Alignment

Outcomes (8 items)

Open-ended (3 items)

Demographics (4 items)

Final Items