Your board is about to have a retreat to review and update the organization’s 5-year strategic plan. Your group has been successful in the past by staying in its comfort zone programmatically, demographically, and structurally, but you realize that major changes are taking place and the organization may be left behind. What do you do?

a) Stay with the tried and true;

b) Commit to looking at inclusiveness strategies, but don’t insert anything radically different;

c) Bring in some non-board, non-voting community representatives to diversify the discussion;

d) Add a day to the retreat and bring in facilitator that can help the group explore what it means to be inclusive including making firm commitments in that area;

Reflection Questions

• What are the prerequisites to being ready to become more inclusive?
• How much time and resources is your organization willing and able to devote? What does that answer imply?
• Will your interpretation of your mission change if you add inclusiveness objectives in your strategic plan? What does that answer imply?