Over a 10-month process, the engagement brought together perspectives from Acacia Network’s leadership, Board, and staff to define a shared vision and set of priorities. The challenge was to translate a wide range of stakeholder input, spanning program integration, financial stability, affiliate relationships, and internal infrastructure, into a focused plan that the organization could realistically execute over the next five years, rather than an unwieldy wish list of every idea raised along the way.
Over a 10-month process, the engagement brought together perspectives from Acacia Network’s leadership, Board, and staff to define a shared vision and set of priorities. The challenge was to translate a wide range of stakeholder input, spanning program integration, financial stability, affiliate relationships, and internal infrastructure, into a focused plan that the organization could realistically execute over the next five years, rather than an unwieldy wish list of every idea raised along the way.
The team began with a current state assessment, reviewing background materials, holding 15 staff and leadership conversations, and fielding a Board questionnaire to outline Acacia Network’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This fed into staff visioning sessions with managers across departments, followed by an all-day 75-person Board retreat that used journey mapping to surface organizational pain points around four major themes. Findings from these sessions were synthesized into a draft vision and set of goals, which were then stress-tested with a staff survey that drew 446 responses from across the network. Throughout, Public Works Partners applied a consistent filter, to decide what belonged in the final plan versus what should be documented for later, ensuring the plan prioritized what mattered the most – service quality, client access, and core administrative infrastructure – before layering on more ambitious initiatives like geographic expansion or AI adoption.
Just as important, the process produced a companion process memo that captures the ideas and insights that didn’t make the final cut, organized by theme (affiliate relationships, intergovernmental affairs, geographic expansion, housing programs, AI and automated tools, and administrative capacity) so that Acacia Network has a ready reference for future planning cycles. By treating the strategic plan as a living document backed by this reservoir of vetted ideas, Acacia Network is positioned to revisit and resurface priorities as it hits milestones over the 2025-2029 plan period.
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