1. ORIGINAL TEXT:
This approach makes the organizational mission the leading principle for the
public sector and not-for-profits, steering their long-, medium- and short-
term decisions and strategies. Their organizational mission is to formulate
the public value that the organization strives to create. For these
organizations, a mere desire to survive is not enough to gain
acknowledgment, legitimacy or support from their stakeholders. A higher
goal, or raison d’être, is required that appeals to both the external
environment (which provides the organization with external connectivity and
legitimacy) and the internal environment (which provides the organization
with internal connectivity and commitment).
Strategic planning and strategic management are often seen as more difficult
for public and not-for-profit organizations than for private companies. This is
partly because of the above-mentioned special requirements for such
organizations, but there are other reasons as well. In public and not-for-
profit organizations, decision-making authority is often more decentralized,
or at least more fragmented, than in private sector organizations. In
addition, the politics-bureaucracy dichotomy is a complicating factor in
governmental organizations. While the goal of public and not-for-profit
organizations is to create as much public value as possible, defined in a
variety of ways, based on the specifics of their mission, the degree to which
they create that value depends on their organizational capacity (or inputs
from the internal environment) and their level of legitimacy and support (or
inputs from the external environment) (see Figure 2.3).
Political parties are like private corporations in some respects, in that they
are primarily privately funded and operate in a highly competitive and often
uncertain environment. In other respects, such as the manner in which they
are regulated by law and the absence of an overarching commercial purpose,
they are more like public organizations. Moreover, in the public eye, they are
part of the political-legal arrangements of the state and are ultimately
oriented to public policy. Therefore, when developing this tool for political
parties, elements of private sector strategic management had to be
combined with elements of public sector strategic management. There are
also some specific considerations that are unique to the nature and position
of political parties. As there is nothing in the existing literature that can be
used as a practical guide, this tool aims to fill that gap.
2.4 Assistance providers and parties in young democracies
Helping political parties strengthen their strategic planning is not an entirely
new phenomenon. Ever since the mid-1990s, political party assistance
2. providers have engaged in strengthening political parties’ organizational
capacities in a large variety of areas. This includes, among other things,
capacities in internal management, internal party democracy, financial
management, ideological identity, inclusivity of women and youth,
campaigning and parties’ capability to govern (Carothers 2006: 97). Electoral
campaign planning in particular has received much attention, mostly from
organizations that are them- selves linked to political parties. They have
drafted manuals, some of which are publicly available. The National
Democratic Institute (NDI) 2009 Political campaign planning manual: a step
by step guide to winning elections is one such notable example.
