Strategic Planning
Our strategic planning services are designed for mission-driven organizations, governmental entities, community groups, and leaders who are ready to turn their vision into action— and who want to ensure that those most impacted, especially individuals with disabilities, are at the center of every decision. Whether you’re leading a small grassroots initiative or managing a statewide system, strategic planning helps you pause, refocus, and build a roadmap for impact that truly reflects your community and its aspirations.
The process involves a combination of graphic facilitation methods and processes to assist in defining the purpose, understanding the audience, and identifying vision, mission, goals, and strategic priority areas. This structured approach helps each entity to:
- Clarify Objectives: By defining clear goals and priorities, organizations can focus their efforts on what truly matters, ensuring that resources are allocated to meet the needs of the community and the people receiving services.
- Engage Partners: Our strategic planning involves collaboration with key partners, which helps in building trust and ensures that everyone’s voice is valued, fostering a sense of ownership among the planning team.
- Adapt to Change: The process allows organizations to assess their current models, identify potential risks, and build safeguards to ensure smooth transitions.
- Drive Impact: With a well-defined strategic plan, organizations implement actionable steps that advance inclusive, person-centered outcomes that ensure that nobody is left behind.
Our strategic planning services have empowered State, County, and Local Governments—as well as dozens of community-based nonprofit organizations—to design and implement state of the art services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Our Previous Work Includes:
- Statewide Service Transformation: Facilitated planning with 16 nonprofit organizations in Oregon led to a system-wide shift from sheltered workshops to individualized, competitive employment services grounded in dignity and choice.
- Equity in Action at AtWork!: Supported the closure of 3 sheltered workshops in Washington State—impacting over 250 individuals with IDD—ensuring every person transitioned to meaningful, competitive wage employment without being left behind.
- Policy-to-Practice Momentum: Co-designed Washington State’s Alderbrook Employment Forums, resulting in a doubling of employment outcomes for individuals with IDD through cross-sector visioning and accountability.
- Leadership Alignment in Colorado: Facilitated the Employment for All Partnership Event, bringing together high-level decision-makers to set bold, collaborative priorities for scaling competitive integrated employment.
- Vision-Driven Transition Planning: Engaged multiple Washington State Division of Vocational Rehabilitation offices, county agencies, and community groups in developing shared, future-focused transition strategies to better support youth with disabilities to gain competitive employment.
These outcomes reflect what’s possible when strategic planning is rooted in values, guided by lived experience, and focused on action.
Why Invest in Strategic Planning?
Strategic planning is more than a document— it is a disciplined, inclusive process that helps mission-driven organizations stay focused, resilient, and ready to lead meaningful change. It is a powerful tool for advancing person–centered services for people with disabilities who are seeking responsive, community–based support tailored to their unique strengths and needs.
Our approach to strategic planning provides a clear roadmap rooted in collective purpose and real-world priorities. By combining participatory facilitation with visual tools that make strategy visible and accessible, we help groups co-create plans that are not only actionable, but also adaptable to evolving challenges.
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Wise was instrumental in helping us build a thoughtful, values-driven strategic plan that truly reflected the heart of our mission. From the start, they encouraged us to pause, not to rush toward compliance or external pressure, but to move forward with clarity, alignment, and purpose.
They helped us slow down to do it right, guiding us through a careful assessment of our current model, identifying potential risks, and building in safeguards to ensure no one, not the people we supported, not our staff, not our families, fell through the cracks during the transition.
Their process gave us the confidence to move forward, even through moments of uncertainty, while still honoring the values and relationships that had always defined our organization. It wasn’t just a strategic plan on paper. It was a living, breathing roadmap that helped us lead change with compassion, courage, and clarity.
– Carrie Dixon, Former Chief Program Officer, Exceed Enterprises, Portland, OR