I return to this question constantly: What does it truly mean to put people at the center of strategy?
At PENN Creative Strategy, this focus isn’t an aside or an aspiration. It’s the current that runs through every engagement, every retreat, every strategic planning process we support. Because ultimately, nonprofit strategy is about people—always.
People are the ones who carry a strategy forward.
People are the ones weighing trade-offs and making decisions.
And people—staff, board, clients, communities—are the ones who feel the impact of those decisions most acutely.
So when we help organizations imagine their futures, tools and frameworks matter. But they’re never the point. The point is how those tools help people make meaning together.
Below are three tools we often bring into the work—and how we use each of them to deepen, not replace, the human conversations that are essential to good strategy.
The Mission Money Matrix: Illuminating Program Economics Without Losing the Mission
The Mission Money Matrix is one of the most clarifying tools we use when organizations need to take a clear-eyed look at their program mix.
On one axis: mission impact—how much a program advances the purpose at the core of the organization.
On the other axis: financial sustainability—how much that program contributes to or draws from the organization’s resources.
When leaders map their programs across these two dimensions, patterns begin to emerge:
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Which efforts are deeply mission-aligned but financially draining?
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Which ones generate revenue but might not advance the mission meaningfully?
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Which programs do both—and which don’t do either?
The matrix doesn’t give you answers; it gives you insight.
But here’s the key: the richest part of the process isn’t the chart. It’s the discussion that follows. What do these patterns mean? What choices do they suggest? What tensions does the team feel between mission fidelity and financial reality?
The tool creates a shared visual language—but the people in the room create the meaning.
A Client Example
A few years ago, we worked with a midsized human services organization that offered eight different programs. Staff had long believed that two of their most cherished programs were “break-even” because of a few grants that had historically supported them.
Once we mapped everything on the Matrix, it became clear that those programs were actually significantly mission-aligned but financially draining. The revelation wasn’t a surprise to the program staff—who had been quietly trying to hold things together for years—but it was eye-opening for the board.
This tool didn’t tell the organization to shut anything down. That’s not its job. Instead, it opened space for a more nuanced conversation:
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Can we find a more sustainable funding model?
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Are there partners who could share the load?
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How do we honor the deep mission value without burning out our people?
The matrix started the conversation; the people shaped the decisions.
The Core Capacity Assessment: A Mirror for Organizational Strength
The Core Capacity Assessment Tool (CCAT), or similar assessments, give organizations a snapshot of their internal strengths and challenges across key capacities—leadership, adaptability, management, technical competencies, and resource development.
It’s a structured way to ask:
Do we have the internal muscles we need to support the future we want to build?
What I love about this tool is that it democratizes insight. Everyone’s perspective contributes to the picture. Staff and board members get to reflect on:
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How clearly they see the organization’s direction
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How confident they feel in leadership
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How effectively systems and processes support the work
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How adaptable the organization is in the face of change
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How well positioned they are financially and operationally
But again, it’s not the survey results that matter most. It’s the conversation afterward—hearing how different people experience the organization differently, and discovering shared themes that can guide future investments.
The assessment becomes a mirror. The people become the sense-makers.
A Client Example
We once supported a statewide policy and advocacy organization that felt, intuitively, that their internal communications were “fine.” The executive director believed they were relatively aligned, even if occasionally stretched.
The assessment told a different story.
Staff across levels scored internal communication and clarity of priorities noticeably lower than leadership expected. Not catastrophically low—but low enough that the pattern couldn’t be dismissed as noise.
What mattered was what happened next.
In the debrief conversations, people shared how much energy was lost due to uncertainty about priorities, how often work had to be redone because expectations weren’t clear, and how overwhelmed team members felt during moments of rapid change.
The assessment didn’t solve these issues. But it made them visible. And once visible, the organization could address them—together. They developed a shared “operating rhythm,” clarified decision-making roles, and set up a monthly cross-team alignment meeting. Six months later, the follow-up conversations felt drastically different.
The tool illuminated the gaps; people closed them.
SWOT Analysis: Surfacing Strengths and Tensions Through Collective Insight
SWOT—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats—is a classic for a reason. When done well, it offers a simple, accessible way to understand both the internal realities and the external forces shaping the organization’s future.
We use SWOT not as a checkbox exercise but as a facilitated exploration.
Strengths and weaknesses help us ground the conversation in what is true today—what the organization does well, and where it consistently struggles.
Opportunities and threats help us imagine what is emerging in the world around us—trends, shifts, risks, or openings that might influence strategic choices.
What makes SWOT powerful is not the four boxes on a page; it’s the group’s ability to discuss what they see and what they don’t see. It’s the opportunity to bring lived experience, client needs, community stories, and staff realities to bear on the strategic questions that matter most.
A SWOT becomes a collective snapshot, drawn from the wisdom in the room rather than the assumptions of a few.
A Client Example
A community arts organization we supported had been struggling with declining attendance in some longstanding programs. In SWOT sessions with staff, board, and community members, we heard a recurring theme: the community’s cultural tastes and needs had shifted, but the organization’s programming hadn’t evolved at the same pace.
In the “Threats” column, people named rising costs, competing events, and changing demographics.
In the “Opportunities” column, participants began naming new artistic partnerships, intergenerational collaborations, and a desire for programming that reflected emerging identities and interests.
What moved the organization forward wasn’t the four boxes. It was the moment a young staff member said:
“I think people want to see themselves reflected in what we create. We’re not doing that yet. But we could.”
That insight—emotional, grounded, hopeful—changed everything. It became a north star for program innovation in the years that followed.
The SWOT gave structure; the stories gave direction.
Tools Matter—But People Make Strategy Come Alive
Yes, these tools give us structure. They offer clarity, rigor, and data to help anchor thinking. But no tool, no matter how elegant, makes decisions. People do.
That’s why our work doesn’t end with data collection or analysis. In many ways, that’s where it begins. Our deepest responsibility is to bring forward the right information—and then design and facilitate the kinds of conversations where people can:
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wrestle with trade-offs
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explore possibilities
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sit with tensions
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ask bold questions
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and move toward shared direction
We translate data into plain language.
We lift up patterns without dictating conclusions.
We make space for both analysis and emotion, because both belong in strategy work.
When people feel heard, seen, and truly included in meaning-making, strategy becomes something different. It becomes not just a plan, but a commitment—a shared understanding of the future you want to build together.
And that, to me, is what it really means to put people at the heart of strategy.
