Purpose & Strategic Importance
Before the strategic plan is submitted for formal approval by the Governing Board or General Assembly, it is essential to carry out an internal “reality check.” This step helps ensure that the plan is coherent, realistic, and resourced.
Activities & Decisions
Purpose of the reality check
- Ensure each priority makes sense on its own.
- Confirm that the plan works as a whole.
- Test whether the plan has a realistic chance of being resourced.
Key questions for the Governing Board
- Does the plan address the major humanitarian needs in the context?
- Will it strengthen the National Society’s visibility and positioning?
- Does it reinforce the Fundamental Principles and the Society’s identity within the Movement and IFRC network?
- Does it include attention to organisational capacity to deliver the plan?
- Does it prepare the National Society for the future?
- Have the views of key stakeholders been considered?
- Does the final strategy make sense as a whole?
- Are there sufficient resources to implement it? If not, what should be de-prioritised?
Examples & Learning
British Red Cross
“When we share a partner National Society’s strategic plan with our back donor, they’re looking for realism and strong analysis. They want to know: Why is this National Society well-positioned to meet a specific need? And is the plan realistic, given its resources and commitments?”
— International Strategy Lead, British Red Cross
Salvadoran Red Cross
“Once we had a solid draft of the strategic plan, we held interviews with public authorities, organisations from different sectors, and a few service recipients to check whether our direction made sense to them, or if we had missed something.”
— Director of Administration and Finance, Salvadoran Red Cross
Implementation Notes
Resource availability
One of the biggest challenges in implementing a strategy is resources. Financial resources are the most visible, but other gaps also matter:
- Leadership time for managing change and new initiatives.
- Skills and knowledge, which require investment to develop.
- Volunteers, whose numbers cannot grow overnight.
- Staff time, as existing duties compete with new priorities.
Before approval, governance and management should:
- Structure the budget.
- Identify resource gaps.
- Plan and monitor resource mobilisation efforts.
If the plan is clearly unviable, it should be revised before moving forward, to avoid risk of failure.
Risk management
Finalising the strategic plan should include developing a risk register that identifies:
- The main risks to implementing the plan.
- The mitigation measures the Society will put in place.
This allows the Governing Board to review the strategy in light of potential challenges, and confirm that procedures exist to manage risks.
