5 minute read
Introduction
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
On behalf of the Board of Directors of Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver (BBGV), I am very proud to introduce the new Strategic Plan for the years 2020 to 2025. This plan is the result of many hours of effort on the part of Board Directors and myself under the conscientious leadership of Gerry Egan, Strategic Planning Task Force Chair. The committee was supported by Valerie Lambert, Executive Director and her capable staff. Our process was facilitated by Joanna Whalley who brought her vast experience to the table to help us distill and clarify our thoughts. I would like in particular to call out the efforts of Rose Higgins, Manager - Research, Inclusion, and Strategy, who worked tirelessly to support our task force and to keep us on track.
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Shortly after we began this work, it became apparent that we were on the verge of a pandemic of uncertain duration and severity. I particularly appreciate the efforts of the team in completing this work on time, notwithstanding the upheaval in the world. The pandemic helped us find our voice as we recognized the importance of serving young people for whom many social outlets had ceased. The Black Lives Matter movement also helped highlight the importance of our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and anti-racism work, which will form a large part of our program focus going forward.
The Committee began by reviewing the vision, mission and values of the organization to ensure they sufficiently inform and inspire our future direction. Our new vision and mission reflect the strength-based nature of our programming.
Our vision is: All children and youth are empowered to reach their full potential through mentorship.
Our mission is: Enable impactful mentoring relationships where children and youth can discover their power and potential, in collaboration with our local communities.
There is also a renewed focus on the fact that supporting children and youth is very much a community-based and collaborative effort.
The mission reflects the holistic nature of child and youth development and expresses the essential need for mentorship in the formative years.
As a Board, we participated in and endorsed the values of safety, collaboration, community, inclusivity and mentorship. These have changed somewhat from the organization’s previous values. The new values resonated with our entire staff, who participated in our process.
Our strategic priorities for 2020-2025 evolve around four key areas: Community and Growth (Broadening our Impact), our Internal Delivery Process (Deepen our Impact), People Engagement, and Financial Sustainability. These priorities are unpacked and thoroughly discussed in this text.
Each of these priorities includes stretch goals that will challenge our entire team to deliver their very best to our community. Specific strategic directives and key performance indicators (KPI’s) have been identified for each of these five areas. These will continue to be developed over the next five years. We view our Strategic Plan as a living document. As we plan our operations for each of the years 2021 to 2025, we will refine and enhance our KPI’s and even add new ones as conditions evolve. Our new plan also is branded with our new colours and logo. We hope it reflects an optimistic view of the future.
I would like to thank my co-directors for the incredible contribution they made to BBGV in participating in this worthwhile process. I would also like to thank all of our community partners, families, mentors, youth and staff who took the time to give us feedback on our plan. We heard you, your contributions are important, and we hope that you feel your views are reflected in this plan.
Thank you.
Tony Miles, Chair, Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver Board
My daughter has been a Big Buddy in the Teen Mentorship program for 2 yrs, I’m so impressed with your organization’s support of both the Big & Little Buddies. I’ve donated clothes & household items to BB for years also. Thank you for jumping in to action so quickly during the COVID-19 crisis/pandemic to support the Bigs with all the webinars & then getting the mentoring program up & running again virtually! Such flexibility, creativity & dedication!
- Parent of a Big Buddy
LONG-TERM IMPACTS INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Board-led strategic planning process was very comprehensive and inclusive. We consulted widely with literally hundreds of stakeholders who generously took the time to respond to our survey questions, give thoughtful comments and encourage our strategic planning process. New directors representing fresh perspectives participated in the process along with more seasoned directors who were able to bring a longer term perspective to our discussions. There were also a number of staff representatives on the Task Force committee. We checked back with the entire staff at key points in the process to ensure that everyone had a chance to engage in the process in some way. All voices were very much valued.
Even before the advent of the pandemic, it was obvious that our organization was going through a period of self-reflection rooted primarily in asking ourselves, how do we bring the most value to the communities we serve? We are currently engaged in theory of change work which is helping us get clarity on whom it is that we serve, who can most benefit from our programming and what impacts we can reasonably achieve. That work will continue during the course of our new five-year plan, being weighted to the early years. The pandemic circumstances focused us on the importance of providing support to young people as they struggle with their uncertain world in addition to other challenges they are experiencing. Over the next few years, we will continue to align service delivery around our evolving theory of change.
To assist us in identifying areas of opportunity and challenge, we engaged in a SOAR analysis in place of our previous SWOT process. This is fully described in the plan and is consistent with our strength-based approach to mentorship.
We are also incorporating our work around Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and anti-racism into every aspect of our programming and this will evolve over the next few years.
Notwithstanding the challenges of the past several months, we are excited to be rolling out this new plan. We hope you find it thoughtful, worthy of your feedback and aspirational for the future.
Thank you.
