CASP CEU Center

Strategic Planning

CASP Organizational Guidelines: Chapter 1

Section: Business Operations

Format: online only

Released: January, 31 2022

Chapter Overview:

Strategic planning is an investment in the success of an autism service provider organization and its clients. The costs associated with consultant fees, staff time, and potential staff and board member travel will yield long-term returns on the investment, including improved client outcomes, stronger financial returns, expansion of service areas, more clearly aligned priorities, increased customer satisfaction, enhanced operational excellence, and more focused resource allocation. Together, these benefits allow leaders to position their organizations for sustainable growth.

Today’s autism service provider organizations operate in a constantly changing landscape in which regulations are tightening, reimbursement models are shifting, qualified staff are in high demand, and private equity interest is increasing at a rapid pace. Even if organizational development interventions such as process improvement and staff training are in place, organizations often lack a big-picture plan that enables them to coordinate and prioritize these interventions and their resource allocation. Strategic planning is a systems-level approach for creating a long-term road map toward business success that begins by articulating high-level guiding principles (e.g., mission, vision, and core values) and ends with defining specific strategies that will drive operational excellence.

Many nonprofit and for-profit human service provider organizations operate without such a comprehensive strategic plan. However, the failure to use a structured road map to the future not only may limit internal organizational development but also may inhibit long-term enhancements in the scope and quality of client services.