Capstone Project Part V: Action Plans A theme throughout this course has been that human and social services professionals constantly apply theories and processes to address issues and challenges. As a social change agent, leader, and advocate, you should be able to apply relevant theories and processes to implement and support change on a local and global scale. As always, codes of ethics should provide guidance as you attempt to bring about change. As the final step in the development of your strategic plan, you will develop an action plan for each year of the strategic plan. For example, your plan might start off with strategic goals at the local level with plans to take these goals national or international in following years of the strategic plan. To prepare: Review the feedback from your Instructor regarding the      components of your strategic plan in Weeks 3, 4, and 6–8. You should make any changes based on the feedback you      received. You will include these elements as a whole this week for your      final strategic plan. Finally this week, consider what actions you will take      each year of the strategic plan.   By Day 7 The Assignment (15–22 pages): Guidelines for each section of the Assignment are provided below. Part I. The Fundamentals (3–4 pages): The fundamentals of a strategic plan include identifying the core values, mission, and vision, which represent the organizational identification (ID). The Assignment requires you to develop the organizational ID for the agency, organization, or community for which you will develop a strategic plan. Identify and describe the core      values of the agency. Discuss       the degree to which those core values are aligned with advocacy,       leadership, or social change. Explain       how those core values contribute to the well-being of individuals,       groups, societies, or international communities. Identify and describe the      mission of the agency, organization, or community. Evaluate       whether the mission statement is aligned with the core values of the       agency, organization, etc. Describe       whether the mission statement promotes advocacy, leadership, or social       change. Discuss       whether the mission statement provides evidence of how the       agency/organization contributes to the well-being of individuals, groups,       societies, or international communities. Identify and describe the      vision of the agency. Evaluate       whether the vision is aligned with the core values of the agency, organization,       etc. Describe       whether the vision promotes advocacy, leadership, or social change. Discuss       whether the vision provides evidence of how the agency/organization       contributes to the well-being of individuals, groups, societies, or       international communities. Identify and describe key      stakeholders involved with the agency. Discuss       whether each stakeholder is inte.

1. Capstone Project Part V: Action Plans
A theme throughout this course has been that human and social
services professionals constantly apply theories and processes
to address issues and challenges. As a social change agent,
leader, and advocate, you should be able to apply relevant
theories and processes to implement and support change on a
local and global scale. As always, codes of ethics should
provide guidance as you attempt to bring about change. As the
final step in the development of your strategic plan, you will
develop an action plan for each year of the strategic plan. For
example, your plan might start off with strategic goals at the
local level with plans to take these goals national or
international in following years of the strategic plan.
To prepare:
Review the feedback from your Instructor regarding the
components of your strategic plan in Weeks 3, 4, and 6–8.
You should make any changes based on the feedback you
received. You will include these elements as a whole this
week for your final strategic plan.
Finally this week, consider what actions you will take each
year of the strategic plan.
By Day 7
The Assignment (15–22 pages):

2. Guidelines for each section of the Assignment are provided
below.
Part I. The Fundamentals (3–4 pages):
The fundamentals of a strategic plan include identifying the
core values, mission, and vision, which represent the
organizational identification (ID). The Assignment requires you
to develop the organizational ID for the agency, organization, or
community for which you will develop a strategic plan.
Identify and describe the core values of the agency.
Discuss the degree to which those core values are aligned
with advocacy, leadership, or social change.
Explain how those core values contribute to the well-being
of individuals, groups, societies, or international
communities.
Identify and describe the mission of the agency,
organization, or community.
Evaluate whether the mission statement is aligned with the
core values of the agency, organization, etc.
Describe whether the mission statement promotes advocacy,
leadership, or social change.
Discuss whether the mission statement provides evidence of
how the agency/organization contributes to the well-being
of individuals, groups, societies, or international

3. communities.
Identify and describe the vision of the agency.
Evaluate whether the vision is aligned with the core values
of the agency, organization, etc.
Describe whether the vision promotes advocacy, leadership,
or social change.
Discuss whether the vision provides evidence of how the
agency/organization contributes to the well-being of
individuals, groups, societies, or international communities.
Identify and describe key stakeholders involved with the
agency.
Discuss whether each stakeholder is internal or external to
the agency/organization.
Describe the role each stakeholder has in the organization
(i.e. leadership, management, staff, recipient of services,
etc.).
Discuss how each stakeholder can be an essential element
for gathering information to develop the strategic plan.

4. Part II. Needs Assessment (2–3 pages):
A needs assessment is a systematic way of determining the gap
between what an agency, organization, or community has and
what is desired to meet the needs of individuals, groups,
communities, or societies. The needs assessment will reveal
whether there
may
be unmet services. It can then provide information about those
needs and help inform your planning to meet them. The needs
assessment also consists of planning
who
you need to target,
how
you will effectively gather new data, and/or how you will use
existing data to inform your planning decisions.
The Assignment:
Outline and describe steps you would take to conduct a
needs assessment.
State which stakeholders you would contact and why you
would contact the stakeholder.
Develop a stakeholder survey related to your professional or
societal issue.
The survey must contain at least 10 questions.
Provide a justification for each question on the survey.
Provide rationale for the type/format of questions on the
survey.

5. State how you would vary items on the survey based on the
role of the stakeholders who would complete it
(administration, leadership, staff, recipient of surveys).
Part III. Strategic Issues (4–6 pages):
After the needs assessment has been completed, the next
element of the strategic plan involves developing the strategic
issues. Key tasks associated with the strategic issues include
conducting a gap analysis, performing an environmental scan,
and developing stakeholder surveys. The actions are performed
so that you can conduct a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for
S
TRENGTHS,
W
EAKNESSES,
O
PPORUNITIES and
T
HREATS. A SWOT analysis is used to help an agency,
organization, or community better understand the business and
environment in which it operates. The goal of developing
strategic issues is to list or map out all of the strengths and
weaknesses and then to do the same for all of the opportunities
and threats. This helps the organization identify a strategy for
planning. Opportunities that match the strengths are things that
should be pursued. Threats that particularly align with
weaknesses should be especially avoided when developing a
strategic plan.
Conduct a SWOT analysis. This analysis focuses on the
present state or condition of the organization and

6. determining where the organization would like to be. The
difference between the two represents the gap or the
difference between where the organization is currently and
where the organization would like to be. This gap could
provide information on what might be the major focus of the
strategic plan.
Describe plans for conducting an environmental scan. The
environmental scan is a process that that gathers and
interprets relevant data on an agency, organization, or
community to identify external opportunities and threats.
Identify and describe internal conditions that might impact
the implementation of the strategic plan.
Address on how you would minimize the impact of those
conditions.
Identify and describe external conditions or competitors
that might impact the implementation of the strategic plan.
Address how you would minimize the impact of those
conditions.
Consider how you might plan to work with competitors to
meet the needs of your targeted agency, organization, or
community.
Identify and describe at least
three

7. strengths of the agency, organization, or community.
State why each item on the list is a strength.
State how you plan to utilize each strength to positively the
impact the development or implementation of the strategic
plan.
Identify and describe at least
three
weaknesses of the agency, organization, or community.
State what causes each item on the list to be a weakness.
State how you plan to minimize the impact of the weakness.
Identify and describe at least
three
threats to the agency, organization, or community.
State what causes each item on the list to be a threat.
State how you plan to minimize the impact of the threat.
Identify and describe at least
three
opportunities for improvement for the agency, organization,

8. or community.
State what causes each item on the list to be an opportunity
for improvement.
State how you plan to incorporate the opportunity to the
implementation of the strategic plan.
Part IV. The Technicals (4–6 pages):
The technicals element includes items such as developing
strategic goals, strategies, leading indicators of success, and
performance targets for the strategic plan. The technical
elements represent the executable part of the strategic plan. As
you begin to develop the technical elements, the executable part
of your strategic plan, consider the goals in relationship to
internationalization and alliances.
Develop your strategic goals (Weeks 6 and 7). You must
include at least three goals on the list. The goals must address
the following:
Address issues such as globalization and how those issues
might impact the strategic goals of the agency, organization,
or community.
Identify potential alliances:
Identify opportunities for alliances with other agencies or
organizations.

9. State why the alliances are important.
Develop strategies for implementing goals. You must have at
identify at least two strategies for each identified goal.
These goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, and
realistic.
Address issues of accountability.
Describe how you will address accountability for each of the
following:
Describe how your leadership will be held accountable for
execution of the strategic plan.
Discuss the following aspects of accountability for
employee:
Identify who will be responsible for executing specific
aspects of the strategic plan.
Explain how employee accountability will be tracked.
Describe leading indicators of success. To determine
whether the agency, organization, or community will benefit
from the strategic plan, you must identify those things which
would serve as indicators of success. These indicators must
be observable, measurable, and quantifiable in some way.

10. Identify four indicators that would signify success with
regard to the strategic plan.
Discuss specifically how you would measure each indicator.
Identify performance targets. Performance targets represent
the level at which you would like to observe performance on
each indicator. They represent the desired level of
performance. For each performance indicator that you have
identified, specify the targeted level of performance.
Part V. Action Plans (2–3 pages):
Develop action plans for each year of the strategic plan. Your
strategic plan should cover 3–5 years.
References
Homan, M. S. (2016).
Promoting community change: Making it happen in the real
world
(6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage.
· Chapter 8, “Powerful Planning” (pp. 228–258)
· Chapter 11, “Building the Organized Effort” (pp. 451–473)
Bost, E. (2009). Innovative human service lessons for—and
learned from—South Africa.
Policy and Practice of Public Human Services, 67
(2), 33.

11. Mayhew, F. (2012). Human service delivery in a multi-tier
system: The subtleties of collaboration among partners. J
ournal of Health & Human Services Administration, 35
(1), 109–135.
National Organization for Human Services. (n.d.).
Ethical standards for human service professionals
. Retrieved from http://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-
standards-for-hs-professionals
Stephenson, M. (2005). Making humanitarian relief networks
more effective: Operational coordination, trust and sense
making.
Disasters
,
29
(4), 337–350. Retrieved from
http://www.ipg.vt.edu/papers/MS_ARNOVA_Humanitarian_II_
Final.pdf