Strategic planning

Strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy
and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward
common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the
organization's ...

VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans) is a practical planning
process used to help community groups define a vision and develop practical ways to enact
change. VMOSA helps your organization set and achieve short term goals while keeping sight of
your long term vision. Implementing this planning process into your group's efforts supports
developing a clear mission, building consensus, and grounding your group's dreams. This section
explores how and when to implement VMOSA into your organization's planning process.

WHAT IS VMOSA?
One way to make that journey is through strategic planning, the process by which a group
defines its own "VMOSA;" that is, its Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans.
VMOSA is a practical planning process that can be used by any community organization or
initiative. This comprehensive planning tool can help your organization by providing a blueprint
for moving from dreams to actions to positive outcomes for your community.
In this section, we will give a general overview of the process, and touch briefly on each of the
individual parts. In Examples, we'll show you how an initiative to prevent adolescent pregnancy
used the VMOSA process effectively. Then, in Tools, we offer you a possible agenda for a
planning retreat, should your organization decide to use this process. Finally, the remaining
sections in this chapter will walk you through the steps needed to fully develop each portion of
the process.

WHY SHOULD YOUR ORGANIZATION USE VMOSA?

Why should your organization use this planning process? There are many good reasons,
including all of the following:
  The VMOSA process grounds your dreams. It makes good ideas possible by laying out
what needs to happen in order to achieve your vision.
 By creating this process in a group effort (taking care to involve both people affected by
the problem and those with the abilities to change it), it allows your organization to build
consensus around your focus and the necessary steps your organization should take.
 The process gives you an opportunity to develop your vision and mission together with
those in the community who will be affected by what you do.  That means that your work
is much more likely to address the community’s real needs and desires, rather than what
you think they might be.  It also means community ownership of the vision and mission,
putting everyone on the same page and greatly increasing the chances that any effort will
be successful.
 VMOSA allows your organization to focus on your short-term goals while keeping sight
of your long-term vision and mission.

WHEN SHOULD YOU USE VMOSA?

So, when should you use this strategic planning process? Of course, it always makes sense for
your organization to have the direction and order it gives you, but there are some times it makes
particularly good sense to use this process. These times include:

 When you are starting a new organization.

 When your organization is starting a new initiative or large project, or is going to begin
work in a new direction.
 When your group is moving into a new phase of an ongoing effort.
 When you are trying to invigorate an older initiative that has lost its focus or momentum.
 When you’re applying for new funding or to a new funder.  It’s important under these
circumstances to clarify your vision and mission so that any funding you seek supports
what your organization actually stands for.  Otherwise, you can wind up with strings
attached to the money that require you to take a direction not in keeping with your
organization’s real purpose or philosophy.

Let's look briefly at each of the individual ingredients important in this process. Then, in the next
few sections we'll look at each of these in a more in-depth manner, and explain how to go about
developing each step of the planning process.
VISION (THE DREAM)
Your vision communicates what your organization believes are the ideal conditions for your
community – how things would look if the issue important to you were perfectly addressed. This
utopian dream is generally described by one or more phrases or vision statements, which are
brief proclamations that convey the community's dreams for the future. By developing a vision
statement, your organization makes the beliefs and governing principles of your organization
clear to the greater community (as well as to your own staff, participants, and volunteers).
There are certain characteristics that most vision statements have in common. In general, vision
statements should be:
  Understood and shared by members of the community
 Broad enough to encompass a variety of local perspectives
 Inspiring and uplifting to everyone involved in your effort
 Easy to communicate - for example, they should be short enough to fit on a T-shirt

Here are a few vision statements which meet the above criteria:

 Healthy children
 Safe streets, safe neighborhoods
 Every house a home
 Education for all
 Peace on earth

MISSION (THE WHAT AND WHY)

Developing mission statements are the next step in the action planning process. An organization's
mission statement describes what the group is going to do, and why it's going to do that. Mission
statements are similar to vision statements, but they're more concrete, and they are definitely
more "action-oriented" than vision statements. The mission might refer to a problem, such as an
inadequate housing, or a goal, such as providing access to health care for everyone. And, while
they don't go into a lot of detail, they start to hint - very broadly - at how your organization might
go about fixing the problems it has noted. Some general guiding principles about mission
statements are that they are:

 Concise. Although not as short a phrase as a vision statement, a mission statement should
still get its point across in one sentence.
 Outcome-oriented. Mission statements explain the overarching outcomes your
organization is working to achieve.
 Inclusive. While mission statements do make statements about your group's overarching
goals, it's very important that they do so very broadly. Good mission statements are not
limiting in the strategies or sectors of the community that may become involved in the
project.

The following mission statements are examples that meet the above criteria.

 "To promote child health and development through a comprehensive family and
community initiative."
 "To create a thriving African American community through development of jobs,
education, housing, and cultural pride.
 "To develop a safe and healthy neighborhood through collaborative planning, community
action, and policy advocacy."

While vision and mission statements themselves should be short, it often makes sense for an
organization to include its deeply held beliefs or philosophy, which may in fact define both its
work and the organization itself. One way to do this without sacrificing the directness of the
vision and mission statements is to include guiding principles as an addition to the statements.
These can lay out the beliefs of the organization while keeping its vision and mission statements
short and to the point.
OBJECTIVES (HOW MUCH OF WHAT WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED
BY WHEN)
Once an organization has developed its mission statement, its next step is to develop the specific
objectives that are focused on achieving that mission. Objectives refer to specific measurable
results for the initiative's broad goals. An organization's objectives generally lay out how much
of what will be accomplished by when. For example, one of several objectives for a community
initiative to promote care and caring for older adults might be: "By 2015 (by when), to increase
by 20% (how much) those elders reporting that they are in daily contact with someone who cares
about them (of what)."
There are three basic types of objectives. They are:

 Behavioral objectives. These objectives look at changing the behaviors of people (what
they are doing and saying) and the products (or results) of their behaviors. For example, a
neighborhood improvement group might develop an objective around having an
increased amount of home repair taking place (the behavior) or of improved housing (the
result).
 Community-level outcome objectives. These are related to behavioral outcome objectives,
but are more focused more on a community level instead of an individual level. For
example, the same group might suggest increasing the percentage of decent affordable
housing in the community as a community-level outcome objective.
 Process objectives. These are the objectives that refer to the implementation of activities
necessary to achieve other objectives. For example, the group might adopt a
comprehensive plan for improving neighborhood housing.

It's important to understand that these different types of objectives aren't mutually exclusive.
Most groups will develop objectives in all three categories. Examples of objectives include:

 By December 2010, to increase by 30% parent engagement (i.e., talking, playing,

reading) with children under 2 years of age. (Behavioral objective)
 By 2012, to have made a 40% increase in youth graduating from high school.
(Community -level outcome objective)
 By the year 2006, increase by 30% the percentage of families that own their home.
(Community-level outcome objective)
 By December of this year, implement the volunteer training program for all volunteers.
(Process objective)

STRATEGIES (THE HOW)

The next step in the process of VMOSA is developing your strategies. Strategies explain how the
initiative will reach its objectives. Generally, organizations will have a wide variety of strategies
that include people from all of the different parts, or sectors, of the community. These strategies
range from the very broad, which encompass people and resources from many different parts of
the community, to the very specific, which aim at carefully defined areas.
Examples of broad strategies include:

 A child health program might use social marketing to promote adult involvement with
children
 An adolescent pregnancy initiative might decide to increase access to contraceptives in
the community
 An urban revitalization project might enhance the artistic life of the community by
encouraging artists to perform in the area

Five types of specific strategies can help guide most interventions. They are:

 Providing information and enhancing skills (e.g., offer skills training in conflict
management)
 Enhancing services and support (e.g., start a mentoring programs for high-risk youth)
 Modify access, barriers, and opportunities (such as offering scholarships to students who
would be otherwise unable to attend college)
 Change the consequences of efforts (e.g., provide incentives for community members to
volunteer)
 Modify policies (e.g., change business policies to allow parents and guardians and
volunteers to spend more time with young children)

ACTION PLAN (WHAT CHANGE WILL HAPPEN; WHO WILL DO

WHAT BY WHEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN)
Finally, an organization's action plan describes in great detail exactly how strategies will be
implemented to accomplish the objectives developed earlier in this process. The plan refers to: a)
specific (community and systems) changes to be sought, and b) the specific action steps
necessary to bring about changes in all of the relevant sectors, or parts, of the community.
The key aspects of the intervention or (community and systems) changes to be sought are
outlined in the action plan. For example, in a program whose mission is to increase youth interest
in politics, one of the strategies might be to teach students about the electoral system. Some of
the action steps, then, might be to develop age-appropriate materials for students, to hold mock
elections for candidates in local schools, and to include some teaching time in the curriculum.
Action steps are developed for each component of the intervention or (community and systems)
changes to be sought. These include:

 Action step(s): What will happen

 Person(s) responsible: Who will do what
 Date to be completed: Timing of each action step
 Resources required: Resources and support (both what is needed and what's available )
 Barriers or resistance, and a plan to overcome them!
 Collaborators: Who else should know about this action

Here are two examples of action steps, graphed out so you can easily follow the flow:
 

Person(s) Date to be Resources Potential Barriers

Action Step Collaborators
Responsible Completed Required or Resistance

 Draft a Terry McNeil April 2006 $15,000 None anticipated Members of the
social (from (remaining business action
marketin marketing donated) group
g plan firm)

 Ask local Maria Suarez September 5 hours; 2 Corporation: may Members of the
corporati (from business 2008 hour proposal see this as business action
ons to action group) prep; 3 hours expensive; must group and the
introduce for meeting convince them of school action
flex-time and benefit of the plan group
for transportation for the corporation
parents
and
mentors

 
Of course, once you have finished designing the strategic plan or "VMOSA" for your
organization, you are just beginning in this work. Your action plan will need to be tried and
tested and revised, then tried and tested and revised again. You'll need to obtain feedback from
community members, and add and subtract elements of your plan based on that feedback.

TAX EXEMPTION
Tax exemption refers to a monetary exemption which reduces taxable income. Tax exempt status can provide
complete relief from taxes, reduced rates, or tax on only a portion of items. Examples include exemption of charitable
organizations from property taxes and income taxes, veterans, and certain cross-border or multi-jurisdictional
scenarios.
Tax exemption generally refers to a statutory exception to a general rule rather than the mere absence of taxation in
particular circumstances, otherwise known as an exclusion. Tax exemption also refers to removal from taxation of a
particular item rather than a deduction.
International duty free shopping may be termed "tax-free shopping". In tax-free shopping, the goods are permanently
taken outside the jurisdiction, thus paying taxes is not necessary. Tax-free shopping is also found in ships, airplanes
and other vessels traveling between countries (or tax areas). Tax-free shopping is usually available in dedicated duty-
free shops. However, any transaction may be duty-free, given that the goods are presented to the customs when
exiting the country. In such a scenario, a sum equivalent to the tax is paid, but reimbursed on exit. More common in
Europe, tax-free is less frequent in the United States, with the exception of Louisiana. However, current European
Union rules prohibit most intra-EU tax-free trade, with the exception of certain special territories outside the tax area.

Specific monetary exemptions

Some jurisdictions allow for a specific monetary reduction of the tax base, which may be referred to as an exemption.
For example, the U.S. Federal and many state tax systems allow a deduction of a specified dollar amount for each of
several categories of "personal exemptions". Similar amounts may be called "personal allowances". Some systems
may provide thresholds at which such exemptions or allowances are phased out or removed.[1]

Exempt organizations
Some governments grant broad exclusions from all taxation for certain types of organization. The exclusions may be
restricted to entities having various characteristics. The exclusions may be inherent in definitions or restrictions
outside the tax law itself.[2]

Approaches for exemption

There are several different approaches used in granting exemption to organizations. Different approaches may be
used within a jurisdiction or especially within sub-jurisdictions.
Some jurisdictions grant an overall exemption from taxation to organizations meeting certain definitions. The United
Kingdom, for example, provides an exemption from rates (property taxes), and income taxes for entities governed by
the Charities Law. This overall exemption may be somewhat limited by limited scope for taxation by the jurisdiction.
Some jurisdictions may levy only a single type of tax,exemption from only a particular tax.
Some jurisdictions provide for exemption only from certain taxes. The United States exempts certain organizations
from Federal income taxes,[3] but not from various excise or most employment taxes.[4]

Charitable and religious organizations

Many tax systems provide complete exemption from tax for recognized charitable organizations. Such organizations
may include religious organizations (temples, mosques, churches, etc.), fraternal organizations (including social
clubs), public charities (e.g., organizations serving homeless persons), or any of a broad variety of organizations
considered to serve public purposes.
The U.S. system exempts from Federal and many state income taxes the income of organizations that have qualified
for such exemption. Qualification requires that the organization be created and operated for one of a long list of tax
exempt purposes, which includes more than 28 types of organizations and also requires, for most types of
organizations, that the organization apply for tax exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, [7] or be a religious
or apostolic organization. Note that the U.S. system does not distinguish between various kinds of tax exempt entities
(such as educational versus charitable) for purposes of granting exemption, but does make such distinctions with
respect to allowing a tax deduction for contributions.
The UK generally exempts public charities from business rates, corporation tax, income tax, and certain other taxes.

Governmental entities]
Most systems exempt internal governmental units from all tax. For multi-tier jurisdictions, this exemption generally
extends to lower tier units and across units. For example, state and local governments are not subject to Federal,
state, or local income taxes in the U.S.]

Pension schemes]
Most systems do not tax entities organized to conduct retirement investment and pension activities for employees of
one or more employers or for the benefit of employees In addition, many systems also provide tax exemption
for personal pension schemes.

Educational institutions
Some jurisdictions provide separate total or partial tax exemptions for educational institutions.[15] These exemptions
may be limited to certain functions or income.
Other not-for-profit entities
Some jurisdictions provide tax exemption for other particular types of organizations not meeting any of the above
categories.

Reciprocal exemptions
Some jurisdictions allow tax exemption for organizations exempt from tax in certain other jurisdictions. For example,
most U.S. states allow tax exemption for organizations recognized for Federal tax purposes as tax exempt.]

Sales tax
Most states and localities imposing sales and use taxes in the United States exempt resellers from sales taxes on
goods held for sale and ultimately sold. In addition, most such states and localities exempt from sales taxes goods
used directly in the production of other goods (i.e., raw materials).

Exempt individuals
Certain classes of persons may be granted a full or partial tax exemption within a system. Common exemptions
are for veterans, clergymen or taxpayers with children (who can take "dependency exemption" for each
qualifying dependent who has lived with the taxpayer. The dependent can be a natural child, step-child, step-
sibling, half-sibling, adopted child, eligible foster child, or grandchild, and is usually under age 19, a full-time
student under age 24, or have special needs) The exemption granted may depend on multiple criteria, including
criteria otherwise unrelated to the particular tax. For example, a property tax exemption may be provided to
certain classes of veterans earning less than a particular income level. [19] Definitions of exempt individuals tend to
be complex.
In the Ottoman Empire, tax breaks for descendents of Muhammad encouraged many people to buy certificates
of descent or forge genealogies; the phenomenon of teseyyüd – falsely claiming noble ancestry – spread across
ethnic, class, and religious boundaries. In the 17th century, an Ottoman bureaucrat estimated that there were
300,000 impostors; In 18th-century Anatolia, nearly all upper-class urban people claimed descent from
Muhammad. The number of people claiming such ancestry – which exempted them from taxes such
as avarız and tekalif-i orfiye – became so great that tax collection was very difficult

Exempt income
Most income tax systems exclude certain classes of income from the taxable income base. Such exclusions may
be referred to as exclusions or exemptions. Systems vary highly. ] Among the more commonly excluded items
are:

 Income earned outside the taxing jurisdiction. Such exclusions may be limited in amount
 Interest income earned from subsidiary jurisdictions.
 Income consisting of compensation for loss.
 The value of property inherited or acquired by gift.
Some tax systems specifically exclude from income items that the system is trying to encourage. Such
exclusions or exemptions can be quite specific or very general.]
Among the types of income that may be included are classes of income earned in specific areas, such as special
economic zones, enterprise zones, etc. These exemptions may be limited to specific industries. As an example,
India provides SEZs where exporters of goods or providers of services to foreign customers may be exempt
from income taxes and customs duties.]

Exempt property
Certain types of property are commonly granted exemption from property or transaction (such as sales or value
added) taxes. These exemptions vary highly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and definitions of what property
qualifies for exemption can be voluminous.
Among the more commonly granted exemptions are:
 Property used in manufacture of other goods (which goods may ultimately be taxable)
 Property used by a tax exempt or other parties for a charitable or other not for profit purpose
 Property considered a necessity of life, often exempted from sales taxes in the United States
 Personal residence of the taxpayer, often subject to specific monetary limitations

Conditions imposed on exemptions

Exemption from tax often requires that certain conditions be met.

Multi-tier jurisdictions
Many countries that impose tax have subdivisions or subsidiary jurisdictions that also impose tax. This feature is
not unique to federal systems, like the U.S., Switzerland and Australia, but rather is a common feature of
national systems.[31] The top tier system may impose restrictions on both the ability of the lower tier system to
levy tax as well as how certain aspects of such lower tier system work, including the granting of tax exemptions.
The restrictions may be imposed directly on the lower jurisdiction's power to levy tax or indirectly by regulating
tax effects of the exemption at the upper tier.

Cross-border agreements
Jurisdictions may enter into agreements with other jurisdictions that provide for reciprocal tax exemption. Such
provisions are common in an income tax treaty. These reciprocal tax exemptions typically call for each
contracting jurisdiction to exempt certain income of a resident of the other contracting jurisdiction.
Multi-jurisdictional agreements for tax exemption also exist. 20 of the U.S. states have entered into the Multistate
Tax Compact that provides, among other things, that each member must grant a full credit for sales and use
taxes paid to other states or subdivisions. The European Union members are all parties to the EU multi-
country VAT harmonisation rules.