Your nonprofit strategic plan is “obsolete” in 2025

How and Why to Switch to a “Roadmap” Model in These Turbulent Times

Federal funding cuts. Elon calling nonprofits the “biggest scam ever.” The newest developments in AI. 

There is no way your strategic plan could have predicted 2025. 

If your plan still looks like it did in December, it’s already out of date.

And yet, I’ve been around long enough to know this isn’t an entirely new problem. Early in my career, I was involved with a nonprofit that went through rounds and rounds of committee meetings to create a beautifully bound and designed 40-page strategic plan. 

Within months, reality shifted and that impressive document was no longer relevant. It gathered dust on a shelf — pulled out only for donor meetings.

In 2025, we can’t afford for that to happen. The good news? There’s a better way.

What to do 

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Brooke Richie-Babbage — host of the Nonprofit Mastermind podcast and founder of the strategy firm Bending Arc — on the Proimpact Project’s weekly LinkedIn Live series. 

Her research shows that nearly half of nonprofit leaders believe their nonprofit strategic plan is no longer usable in the current climate. The problem isn’t just outdated tactics — it’s the planning process itself.

“A roadmap is a living tool, not a printed relic.” — Brooke Richie-Babbage

Between shifting funding priorities, political instability, and new technologies changing how we work, static plans are simply too rigid for the world we’re operating in now.

Roadmap vs. Traditional Strategic Plan

The tech sector faced a similar problem decades ago. They moved from long, inflexible “waterfall” project plans to shorter, iterative “roadmaps” that could adapt in real time. Nonprofits can — and should — do the same.

Traditional plans are often 30–50 page printed documents, meant to guide an organization for 3–5 years. They take months to create, and by the time they’re finished, parts of them are already outdated. Many end up as fundraising collateral instead of guiding real decisions.

A roadmap, on the other hand, is a concise, working document that still takes a long-term view — but is reviewed and updated regularly based on what’s actually happening in your organization and the world.

How Brooke’s Next Level Nonprofit Accelerator Fits In

Brooke’s Next Level Nonprofit Accelerator is a six-month, high-touch program designed to help you redesign your strategy and operations so your organization can grow without the chaos, burnout, or bottlenecks.

One client put it this way:

“Since we started working with Brooke our budget has grown 10x, the team has tripled in size, & I'm a different leader from then to now. We’ve navigated a lot of change and so many choices. There's a lot of risk involved: I'm doing things I've never done before. Our bold expansion is possible because we’ve been guided well by Brooke.” — Yamilée Toussaint

We’ve partnered with Brooke so that when you join through this link, your enrollment also supports the Proimpact Project.

Step 1 – Audit Your Plan for Relevance

Brooke uses a simple but powerful metric: Focus Alignment Rate — the percentage of your team’s time that is spent on activities directly tied to a strategic goal or priority.

If your number is low, your plan isn’t doing its job. Signs of a stale plan include:

• Staff burnout from misaligned work

• Outdated or irrelevant goals

• Unfunded priorities that linger on paper

Step 2 – Separate What’s Fixed from What’s Flexible

One mistake leaders make is treating every part of their plan as equally rigid.

Fixed: Mission, theory of change, top 2–3 strategic priorities  Flexible: Annual goals, specific strategies, tactical activities

Brooke’s Five Questions Framework:

1. Who are we?

2. Where are we starting from?

3. Where are we going?

4. What will we focus on first?

5. How will we get there?

Step 3 – Cut, Cut, Cut: Narrow to Scale Faster

Scaling doesn’t start with doing more — it starts with cutting.

When I took over as Executive Director at CoachArt, I inherited a narrow, focused plan that my predecessor had created. Because it was so clear, we were able to triple our primary impact metric in just a few years.

Brooke sees this with her clients, too:

• Cutting low-impact programs or activities frees up resources for what matters most.

• Narrowing the plan itself makes it easier to execute

Step 4 – Refresh Your Nonprofit Strategic Plan as a Living Roadmap

A roadmap is not a 50-page brochure. It’s a 3–5 page Google Doc with only the essentials:

• Mission & vision

• Current priorities

• Goals for the next 12–24 months

• Key strategies and activities

Traditional plans take a 3–5 year view and then sit untouched. A roadmap still takes that view — but updates it quarterly or biannually, rolling the horizon forward each time.

Step 5 – Communicate and Align Everyone

The best plan is useless if no one uses it.

• Internal: Hold team and board alignment sessions to keep everyone rowing in the same direction.

• External: Share roadmap updates with funders and partners to show responsiveness and clarity.
  

Brooke’s client Sarah Camiscolli puts it like this:

“Less than 2 years after working with Brooke our operating budget has grown by more than $200K! And we’ve won two of the three major nonprofit fellowships! I use her info and resources EVERY SINGLE WEEK to guide me and my team!”

What This Shift Could Mean for the Sector

• Faster adaptation to crises and opportunities

• More funder confidence through visible responsiveness

• Stronger team alignment and reduced burnout

If enough nonprofits made this shift, the sector’s reputation for being “slow and ineffective” could give way to a perception of being agile, strategic, and impactful.

Resources & Next Steps

• Stanford Social Innovation Review survey that inspired Brooke’s findings

• Brooke’s Nonprofit Mastermind podcast episode on roadmaps

• Internal Proimpact posts on leadership and adaptability
  

📣 Ready to make your plan 2025-ready? Join Brooke’s Next Level Nonprofit Accelerator — and when you do, you’ll also be supporting the Proimpact Project’s mission to help EDs scale their impact.