Goal Setting for 2017

Happy New Year! First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in our holiday slide show. We have over 40 cat pictures profiled! If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, I recommend you do! Share it with others! Take a look at our Year In Review with our listen cat submissions HERE! Next up… Goal Setting for 2017!

Don’t forget to join our Burning Questions conference call on Friday, January 6 at noon(eastern standard time).  To sign up just send me a quick email at stacy@communitycatspodcast.com and I will send you all of the details.

May the New Year bring you a new start, new energy and new focus. We all strive for a better and more effective year ahead. Every non-profit that I have worked with, I have always encouraged the importance for reflection and goal setting each year. This is bigger and bolder than budgeting and projections. Usually when we do budgeting and projections for the the next year, we either repeat what we have done in the past or edge our expenses up a bit and our income down. That gives us a conservative estimate and our chances for success are strong.

Goal Setting for 2017

What is a goal? They are new achievements. Things you have done before would be classified as maintenance items. For example, an organization sterilized 200 cats in 2016. It wouldn’t be a goal to say that the organization will spay/neuter 200 cats in 2017. That is maintenance and should be a given. However, to say that the organization will double the number of cats sterilized from the year before (meaning 400 cats)? THAT is a goal which involves change and stretching of the organization.

Other types of goals could be:

• Develop an orientation program and recruitment program for board members (assuming you don’t have one)
• Create a fundraising plan
• Try a unique adoption program technique (event or foster home ambassadors)
• Draft a communications plan
• Provide one inservice program for staff/volunteers during the year
• Write one more grant application this year
• Do one more fundraising event
• Set up a catstat.org account and track your colonies
• Send one or two employees to a conference and have them present to your supporters

Think outside of the box and share these ideas with your staff and board of directors. You shouldn’t be afraid of growth. If your organization doesn’t grow and change as the environment changes, you will find that you will lose support of your volunteers and donors. Most important, continue trying new ideas. You will be able to discover more ways to help the many community cats in your community that desperately need your help and support by never giving up.

If you didn’t catch it, I had a great conversation with Christie Keith on the podcast about communications. We also spent a bit of time talking about the importance of goal setting, so please take some time and give it a listen!

Finally, during January, I want to ask everyone to take the time to fill in my Goals Worksheet that I use every year. You will find it helpful personally, as well as professionally and can adjust it to make it the most useful to you. Feel free to download the sheet now!