A strategic planning session is held at the Alice Paul Institute in 2022. Photo courtesy of API.
The Alice Paul Institute (API) in Mount Laurel interprets and stewards the family home of suffragist Alice Stokes Paul, a National Historic Landmark. API offers leadership programming for young women and historical programming about Paul’s life and work, the Equal Rights Amendment, and women’s history more broadly.
API received a $30,000 grant for strategic planning through the Cultural Trust’s FY22 Institutional and Financial Stabilization Grants for History and Humanities Organizations program.
Strategic planning is a key element of an organization’s long-term sustainability. Strategic plans give organizations focus by establishing mission-aligned goals that guide decision-making, build organizational culture, and help allocate resources. Changing circumstances often require organizations to make significant pivots, and a strategic plan can provide essential guidance as an organization determines how best to navigate unexpected opportunities or unforeseen challenges. For API, the COVID-19 pandemic was one such key moment. After the initial period of fast-moving adaptation, API identified the need for a new comprehensive strategic plan that would ensure the organization had a strong foundation in the post-COVID landscape.
API used its Cultural Trust grant to hire an external consultant to guide the staff and board through the strategic planning process. The resulting four-year plan is a roadmap and a statement of purpose that will serve API well into the future.
API Executive Director Rachael Glashan Rupisan described the strategic planning process as an opportunity to “refine our organizational values” which yielded an updated mission statement. Additionally, the FY23-FY26 strategic plan established long-term objectives and milestones around which API will structure future programs and initiatives, and it strengthened and clarified the structure of API’s board. Developing the plan was also an opportunity for API to engage deeply with its audience and community through town halls and surveys, strengthening existing relationships and building new ones.
“The entire process helped reinvigorate our organization and everyone involved,” Glashan Rupisan said.
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