Good morning. I am Karen Schlesinger, and I’ll be talking about how a strategic plan is evaluated, budgeted, and implemented, and I will be using a theoretical plan for addressing the issue of food waste to illustrate.
First, a little context on the issue. Some of you might be thinking: What’s the big deal about food waste? I compost all my leftovers anyway, so it’s not like I’m harming anyone. I’m the pinnacle of sustainability!
Well, let’s peel back the layers of this rotten misconception. Food waste is an issue for sustainability because it has environmental and economic implications, and it is an issue relevant for anyone who eats!
First, many people in this country do not or cannot compost their wasted food, and so most of it ends up in the landfill where it releases methane. And we all know methane is worse than carbon dioxide for climate change.
Economically, wasted food could mean farmers plowing under their crops because prices are too low for them to profitably harvest, or it could mean consumers are throwing money away in the form of uneaten food.
So, if we were creating a strategic plan for this issue of food waste, we would need a plan to monitor and evaluate it, a budget, and an implementation plan. So let’s untangle each of these steps one by one.
Monitoring is a process of measuring the program as it unfolds. It asks if there are any mid-course corrections needed in order to meet the goals that have been set. It’s the part of the plan that keeps you “in the loop”.
Evaluation is the process of asking: What happened? Were our goals achieved? What parts of the campaign are tied to the best outcomes? It pulls together lessons learned in order to build a better outcome next time.
The evaluation plan asks 5 questions. If a goal of our food waste campaign was to increase consumer acceptance of oddly shaped food so that it isn’t discarded, we’d first ask “Why are we measuring the acceptance of oddly shaped food?”.
Second, we’d ask, “What inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes, or impacts will be measured?” What are we measuring to indicate success? Did we successfully raise awareness about ugly food waste, and how do we know?
Third we’d ask, “What methodologies will be used to conduct these measurements?” In other words, what tools will we use to measure our outcomes: surveys of store employees and farmers, dumpster diving, or interviews with shoppers?
Fourth we’d ask, “When will these measurements be taken?” Will we do surveys in the beginning, middle, and end of our campaign to track its effectiveness? How long should we wait before we expect to see results?
And lastly we ask, “How much will this cost?” The more tools we use, the more data we gather, and the longer we take, the more of chance we’ll get better results, but that will all cost more as well. Which brings us to our budget.
The Budget of our strategicplan includes costs associated with implementation, such as the marketing mix strategy (product, price, place, promotion), as well as the monitoring and evaluation plan.
The budgeting process helps anticipate if phasing in will be necessary due to cost overruns. Phasing a project would spread the costs over time if strategy and goals cannot be changed to meet budget requirements.
If the strategic plan is for a non-profit, this step also identifies funding paths, such as gov’t grant, foundations, or media partners. For for-profit ventures, a greater emphasis will be on financial self-sufficiency.
Next is implementation, which is all hands on deck! It details who will do what, when, and how, and for how much. It is a working, living document to share and track progress, and has a 1 – 3 year outlook.
It would identify that, for example, I will conduct the focus groups with consumers over the next 2 months by pulling together groups of people to discuss how oddly shaped produce contributes to food waste.
So to recap, our monitoring and evaluation plan asks targeted question so we know where we are and where we’ve been. The budget tells us what it will cost to get there, and the implementation plan is the roadmap.
Thank you very much for your attention. After listening to our presentation, hopefully you have a better idea of the key elements of a strategic plan for sustainability. Now we will be leading you through an activity where you will try some of these ideas with your own project.
