There is Only Now: Nonprofit Strategic Planning as Spiritual Practice

Key Takeaways

• Effective nonprofit strategic planning starts in the present moment. When the future feels unpredictable, grounding strategy in current realities leads to more adaptive and resilient decision-making.
• Outdated organizational narratives can limit nonprofit growth. Releasing past- or future-focused stories helps nonprofits clarify who they are now and plan from an honest, mission-aligned place.
• Mindfulness and identity are essential tools for nonprofit sustainability. Reflection, mission alignment, and letting go of legacy assumptions strengthen strategic planning in complex and changing environments.

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Seemingly everywhere nonprofits look today, one finds the language of crisis. The crisis of democracy. Funding crises. A crisis of faith in institutions. The crisis of generational shifts. One glance at the state of world affairs, and it may be impossible to see nothing but the crushing weight of uncertainty.

At its core, “crisis” speaks to the anxieties of the unknown. An uncertain future creates havoc for organizers, planners, and fundraisers alike. What good is it to project a budget or programming when seemingly everything is thrown into disarray? 

As my own university employer enters a period of strategic planning, we face the innumerable headwinds that put into question the efficacy of any future forecasting. With cultural and political challenges to higher education, economic rumbling, and the so-called demographic cliff, uncertainty may be the only certainty. 

In framing strategic planning for this fragile moment, I turn to identity and the metaphorical language institutions use to describe themselves. Some speak of organizations running like a machine; others prefer to see themselves as a family. You might hear of an institution as a ship or a body with many parts. Some language is hierarchical; some language is democratic. Some focuses on function, some on form.

Imagine, however, if we consider an institution as a spiritual being having a material experience. Our university can be compared to a body with many parts, of course, but at its core it can be envisioned as a spiritual entity. As such, we can imagine it functioning with a spiritual consciousness, able to embody such concepts as self-emptying, mindfulness, and ego detachment.

Engaging in a strategic plan with this spiritual consciousness in mind, new avenues suddenly appear. A greater connection to mission, an awareness of present needs, and an ability to rethink long-held beliefs about identity all contribute to evolving organizational consciousness. Anxieties about the future transform into an openness to the powers of the present moment. 

The best strategic plans start from within and work towards an actionable present. Through meditations on institutional narratives, mindfulness, and identity, I invite us to consider how inner reflection creates space for a braver and more focused strategic plan. In my vision, past, present, and future melt into the singularity of the moment, where the immediacy of now propels us ever forward.

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“Only an honest assessment of today can help guide our work towards tomorrow.”

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Narrative Emptiness: A Story of Now

All organizations tell stories, and our university is no different. We talk about origins, who we once were and where we think we’re going. We tell benefactors of their impact, speak proudly of notable alumni, and tell the world of incredible student accomplishments. Stories, in short, are vital to the ways that universities present themselves to the world.

But for strategic planning, stories can also hinder real progress. When we repeatedly tell stories about who we are and where we think we are supposed to be, we can lose sight of the powerful imperatives to change the narrative. Sometimes we must embrace the emptiness of the moment, releasing the old stories we tell ourselves to allow the experience of the present to set a new path.

In Living Beautifully, American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron writes of the incredible power of freedom from narratives:

“Emptiness is not a void, blank space where nothing is happening. The whole point is that discovering basic goodness – discovering the awakeness, the is-ness, the nowness of things – doesn’t just happen by transcending ordinary reality. It comes from appreciating simple experiences free of story line.”

Adopting an emptiness that Chodron describes requires vulnerability, allowing us to admit that our old storylines may be hindering powerful moments of reflection and growth. They may equally be stuck in some mythic past or never-quite-here future, where the beauty of our work never settles in the present moment.

To make this insight more concrete for strategic planning, I offer the following steps:

1. Identify what’s not working. Review all storylines that struggle in the present tense. Ask: do we make decisions on who we were or want to be instead of who we are? This question opens space for a greater understanding of the present moment.
2. Gather together all our old story lines. Ask: what stories are we implicitly or explicitly telling about ourselves? Record without judgment.
3. Think in the present tense. Review each storyline and notice verb tense. Are we constantly speaking in a future or past tense? 
4. Rewrite for the Now. Consider each storyline in the present tense. Do the new storylines feel fresh, or do they ring hollow to our present work?

Identity: The Ego-less Now

The previous step asked us to consider the importance of mission alignment through practicing mindfulness, but deeper considerations of identity are also required to truly realize our institution’s direction. While a clearly realized identity is crucial for defining mission, we must be mindful of the ways that identity can calcify old selves and no longer serve our best interests. 

A healthy sense of self must be distinguished from ego attachment. A renewed sense of identity and purpose requires adjusting to the present moment, allowing mission to adapt to the needs of the organization and community. There are few things more freeing than casting off the self-perceived demands of history.

For organizations that are decades—if not centuries—in age such as ours, the presence of history and tradition may haunt any attempt to rethink identity. But when we grasp that the work of love and service transcends the confines of epochs, we see that tradition is always a means to becoming more loving, more of service, and more present to the needs of others. When it no longer serves these purposes, it must be left behind for something stronger and more loving to emerge.

Pema Chodron uses a helpful analogy to best realize this ego-less identity:

“It’s not that we can’t have views and opinions about oatmeal or snow—or anything else, for that matter. It’s just that we don’t cling to those views. Instead, we try them on, have fun with them, like an actor or actress in a play. We can dance with life when it’s a wild party completely out of control, and we can dance with life when it’s as tender as a lover. We work with whatever we have, with whoever we are, right now.”

An ego-less planning can come and go in many directions. I offer some steps here:

1. Identify What Seems Untouchable. Consider what in the past has dictated our identity instead of the needs of the present. What we may always have been known for may no longer serve us now. If questioning these aspects feel like heresy, then we know we have found deep institutional ego attachments.
2. See Through the Artifices of History. For each aspect identified in the previous step, consider this question: Does this serve our community’s current needs? or Is it rather a way to maintain history and prestige? This question doesn’t demand the elimination of tradition. Rather, it asks where we distinguish love and service from institutional pride.
3. Exercise: Trying Something New. In consideration of Pema Chodron’s analogy, try on different identities. You might ask: what if we were recognized for something completely different than before? Consider what excites and what causes division. 
4. Distinguish the Core from its Expressions. Letting go of rigid adherence to past expressions of institutional identity, consider what are the core principles of institutional identity. What is our institution’s deepest purpose? How can that be lived anew in the present?

Coda: A Future-less Now

Nonprofit organizations have a tremendous opportunity to live the now-ness of the present by embodying their mission as a conceptualized spiritual being. Despite the near obsessive need to constantly future plan, the radical uncertainty of tomorrow means that love and service are needed in the current moment today as always.

What this looks like for each organization will vary from place to place and mission to mission. But each must ask: are we willing to stand in the ashes of the old to allow for the fullness of today to emerge?

So, spend the funds. Create the program. Reach out in gratitude to long-standing supporters. Find yourself in the stillness of the moment. Serve. Live joy. Listen. Be.

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