Fox Valley Score

STRATEGIC PLAN

FY 2017

FOX VALLEY SCORE

CHAPTER 0289

Table of Contents

Executive Summary………………………………………………….. 2

The Mission……………………………………………………………… 3

The Chapter……………………………………………………………… 3

Initiatives…………………………………………………………………. 4

BUILD COMMUNITY AND BRAND AWARENESS………………………….. 4

CREATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED WEB

STRATEGY………………………………………………………………………………….5

TRAIN OUR MENTORS FOR THE FUTURE ……….…………………………..6

FOCUS ON AND BUILD FROM THE HIGHEST POTENTIAL

CLIENT RICH GEOGRAPHIES…………………………….…………………………7

FOCUS ON DIVERSITY (CLIENTS, MENTORS, SERVICES,

ABILITIES, AREAS OF EXPERTISE)…………………….………………………..7

RECRUIT AND PLAN FOR SUSTAINING THE CHAPTER’S

HIGH STANDARD OF PERFORMANCE ………………….………………………8

METRICS………………………………………………………………………………………………..9

Attachment 1: FY 2016 Strategic Plan – a Review…………………………………..10

Attachment 2: Marketing……………………………………………………………………….14

Attachment 3: Improve the Quality of Client Services by Training for

The Future…………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Attachment 4: Organization……………………………………………………………………16

Attachment 5: Diversity………………………………………………………………………….17

Attachment 6: Example Task Force…………………………………………………………18

STRATEGIC PLAN

FY 2017

FOX VALLEY SCORE

CHAPTER 0289

Executive Summary:

Fox Valley Score’s mission is to be the national chapter of the year. This is a concrete expression of our intent to achieve and sustain levels of excellence in client services and volunteer engagement that can consistently earn national recognition. Those levels are to be achieved through continuous growth:

In the range and quality of services we provide our increasing number of clients and,
Of the skills, knowledge, number and diversity of our volunteers.

Six general initiatives are identified that will focus our efforts to achieve the mission. They are: 1) Build community and brand awareness, 2) Create and implement an integrated and comprehensive web strategy, 3) Train our mentors for the future, 4) Focus on and build from the highest potential client rich geographies, 5) Focus on diversity (clients, mentors, services, abilities, areas of expertise) and 6) Recruit and plan for sustaining the chapter’s high standard of performance. They are overlapping but we have chosen for FY 2017 to emphasize the first three believing if the right strategies and tactics are implemented that the results in all six initiatives will improve and our three metric goals achieved.

The Fox Valley Chapter has four branches, each having a manager. The strategic plan recognizes that each branch has different needs and is in a separate stage of development and the manager is in the best position to identify and implement the strategies and tactics that both grow the branch and contribute to achieving the chapter’s mission. In addition to the branch activities the chapter, through standing committees or task forces, will undertake initiatives, provide support or create supportive materials or infrastructure to support the branch managers and the general initiatives. The committees count marketing (including outreach, website, and social media), training, workshop and technical. One task force is the Supply Chain and Lendee Improvement Program (SCALIP). A chapter wide activity is our annual business forum.

Each branch manager will develop metrics for the strategies and tactics undertaken in their branch. Each task force will develop its own metrics. Where appropriate each committee will develop its own metrics. Each group will be responsible for tracking its metrics and goal achievement. The unifying factors are the three primary chapter metrics prepared by national; i.e. client engagement, volunteer engagement and net promoter score. The end result of any initiatives is the improvement of all or any of these three primary metrics to: 1) a NPS of 83, 2) a volunteer engagement rating of 78 and 3) a client engagement score of 4.6.

The FY 2017 strategic plan drills down into the FY 2016 strategic plan. An overview of the 2016 plan and a summary of the results is set forth in Attachment 1.

THE MISSION:

In the range and quality of services we provide our increasing number of clients and,
Of the skills, knowledge, number and variety of our volunteers.

The mission has been adopted realizing full well that as of the end of the 2016 fiscal year our level of service has ranged from just above average to just below average. Further, despite increasing every year, we do not provide a volume of services commensurate with the size of our market. In fact, we underserve our market. Our challenge is to grow our client services while improving the quality of the services we offer.

We have accepted the mission knowing, because of the nature of our commitment to sustain the levels of excellence achieved, that it is never fully completed.

THE CHAPTER

The Fox Valley Chapter serves Chicago’s six western collar counties; Dekalb, DuPage, Kendall, Kane, McHenry and Will. It contains three of the five largest cities in the state of Illinois; Aurora (2), Joliet (4) and Naperville (5). Elgin, also in our chapter area, is the ninth largest. The chapter also has a significant rural population with many towns having populations under 25,000. According to the 2010 census the population of the six counties was approximately 2.2 million. There are approximately 233,000 small businesses.

The chapter is divided into four branches each with its own manager. Based on the prioritized initiatives each manager chooses the programs and actions best suited to the needs of the branch. The chapter develops tools, programs, actions and task forces that have a chapter wide impact, provide and coordinate support for the manager’s plans and explore new activities. Member training, the development of an integrated web strategy, branding and development of the workshop program are chapter activities. The branch managers are more granular in focus. Identifying and cultivating key partners in their branch area, identifying what aspects of the branding program and integrated web strategy will be most effective, and what workshops would attract the most potential clients in their area. The branch managers are part of the executive committee; they meet as a group with the chair and vice-chairs once a quarter and meet individually with the chair once each quarter. Most important in terms of our total organization is maintaining focus that we are a chapter and each volunteer is a resource for the whole chapter not just the branch, successful strategies and tactics are to be shared as are lessons learned. The development of silos needs to be avoided.

INITIATIVES:

The strategic planning committee identified six broad, interrelated initiatives that, if effectively planned and implemented will lead to accomplishment of our mission. Three of them are designated as high priority in FY 2017: 1) Community and Brand Awareness, 2) Creation and implementation of an integrated web strategy and 3) training our mentors for the future. Each of the initiatives is assigned at least one sponsor. The initiatives are both unique and, in some sense, overlapping. Each of them, along with examples of strategies and tactics supporting them is described below.

1) BUILD COMMUNITY AND BRAND AWARENESS [Mike Warner, John Panarese, John Benton]

Our research indicates that we are neither the best known nor the “go to” small business resource in the Fox Valley. We are not known well enough to be consistently identified by organizations and business as a valuable resource. This is particularly true in Aurora, Joliet and the Elgin area. Fox Valley SCORE will develop and use the following methods to increase the visibility of our brand and make businesses and business promoters aware of who and what we are:

Public Relations

External
Identify key external organizations that can be reached to communicate and share SCORE’s mission of helping small business grow.
Develop relationships and periodic communications with those organizations.
Identify mutual ways that each of us can benefit from the partnership.
Examples of organizations would be:
Local media – Print, Digital, and TV
Service and Professional Organizations –, Kiwanis, Rotary, etc.
Others TBD
Referral Building and Community Outreach

Identify key business partners that can help deliver chapter services and be helped by working with SCORE
Utilize National Partner lists and work with organizations locally to grow the Chapters capabilities and credibility. Examples are Paychex, On Deck, Constant Contact,’ Microsoft,
Identify and develop local partners to help small businesses, SBDCs. Banks, Libraries, Chambers, Economic Development Organizations government entities, etc.
Outreach Committee and branch managers to identify partners and organizations to help achieve the chapter and each branch to build effective relationships where we can work together to serve the community and increase community and brand awareness. Priority will be given to those having the greatest potential to help us achieve our mission.
Key Events – Annual SCORE Fox Valley Forum, Mayors’ Breakfasts

Internal
Develop effective systems to communicate and engage all members and provide useful information about the Fox Valley SCORE brand and what we deliver to the community.
Enable members to understand the successes achieved to encourage participation in our ongoing services.
Focus branch meetings on what member involvement needs to be relative to this initiative

Promote Workshops, Roundtables, Webinars and Events

Develop and analyze marketing efforts that promote key events. Identify methods to enroll new clients and keep existing clients to participate in Chapter Events.
Build attendance

2) CREATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED WEB STRATEGY [John Panarese, John Benton]

Fox Valley SCORE’s web presence includes a website, Constant Contact, Facebook and Linked-In. IN FY 2016 we participated in the national test group for Hyperlocal and continue to do so as it moves into the next phase. Despite all these tools the number of names on our contact lists, hits and opens on the media are not at the levels expected in an area with over 233,000 small businesses and with more being created each week.

Strategies and tactics will be developed to create communications and tools for Social Media and Digital Marketing and the website to grow community awareness of Fox Valley SCORE throughout our service area.

Develop a specific ‘Digital Strategy’ to enhance our presence across the six – Kendall, Will, DuPage, DeKalb, Kane, & McHenry – counties served by our Chapter
Work with branch managers to identify how to most effectively use the tools to build their branches.
Coordinate content of our various platforms to assure maximum exposure for events, promotions and services
Exploit national resources and personnel

Building community and brand awareness and the creation of an integrated digital strategy are inextricably linked with the chapter’s marketing plan. Although not identified as one of the initiatives or tasks to be undertaken the outline of the marketing plan, to be further developed, is included as Attachment 2.

3) TRAIN OUR MENTORS FOR THE FUTURE [Larry Bussow, Tom Drouin, Evan Kayes]

The success of the chapter ultimately depends upon the quality of our mentors. Our 90 plus mentors are all highly knowledgeable about how to do business. However the great preponderance of their experience was gained in the late 20th century. Many of them are not fully aware of, or knowledgeable about, or comfortable with the ways that business is done in 2016, will be done in the future, or who is doing that business. A SCORE mentor must always be relevant to the client.

In addition to maintaining a current knowledge base there is the base concept of mentoring. Many if not all of our volunteers acted as a mentor to people within their organization. Ultimately organizational mentoring is a power relationship. The mentor has organizational power over the mentee and the mentee cannot easily withdraw from the relationship. If someone voluntarily becomes a mentee they are also free to withdraw from the relationship if they see no value in it. Therefore regardless of any generational or other differences SCORE mentors must continuously provide value and listen to their mentee or risk becoming irrelevant and losing the relationship. In addition a SCORE mentor may encounter questions or situations that hardly ever if at all, appear in an organizational mentoring setting.

The primary new training program for FY 2017 is the institution of a CEU type program for all volunteers who have achieved Master Mentor status. A Master Mentor is a volunteer who, within one year of becoming an active member, has taken required, additional training beyond the minimum required by national and the chapter. Within three years of becoming a Master Mentor a volunteer will have to choose from and participate in, a wide variety of choices, for a minimum number of training hours in order to maintain their eligibility to mentor one-on-one. If the hours are not put in they will, however, be able to continue as a SCORE volunteer.

Attachment 3 explores some proposed tactics and strategies to achieve this initiative.

4) FOCUS ON AND BUILD FROM THE HIGHEST POTENTIAL CLIENT RICH GEOGRAPHIES [Harry Eng, Ed Peterlinz]

Fox Valley SCORE has over 90 members. It is a limited resource when compared to the richness, complexity and diversity of our service area. We do not serve all parts of our service area equally. Ultimately we must. But by the end of FY 2017 we will not be able to do that. Therefore, Fox Valley will target its growth and focus its resources. In FY 2016 the city of Joliet was the primary focus of our attention and positive results were achieved in client growth, community recognition and mentor recruitment. This was achieved without negatively impacting the balance of the chapter.

In FY 2017 we will continue to build on the success of our efforts in Joliet and focus on building community recognition, clients and mentors in Aurora. Aurora and Joliet are respectively the second and fourth largest cities in Illinois. Both cities 1) have gone through hard times and are seriously working on reversing their fortunes, 2) are underserved by SCORE, 3) have significant African-American populations and 4) have significant Hispanic and other ethnic populations. Increasing our penetration of these markets will significantly and positively impact achievement of our mission. The branch managers, working with their branch and chapter resources will identify the best ways to penetrate these markets and develop appropriate metrics to demonstrate progress.

Attachment 5 is an explanation of how the chapter is approaching the question of organizing itself to better align with the needs, and demographics and location of our clients and our mentors

5) FOCUS ON DIVERSITY (CLIENTS, MENTORS, SERVICES, ABILITIES, AREAS OF EXPERTISE) [George Safford, Wayne Schreiner]

Diversity is not limited to race, sex, age or ethnicity. It also includes, among other things, the services we offer, the nature and types of clients we serve, and our mentors abilities and areas of expertise.

Research consistently shows that diverse, inclusively led teams perform better than those that are more homogenous. Diverse teams demonstrate stronger collaboration and better retention and in business are more likely to improve market penetration and have success in new markets. Making sure that all people’s voices are heard and valued not only helps attract and retain the best people, but it also helps us deliver better approaches for clients and the organization. Creating an inclusive workforce, where all differences matter, allows us to identify the risks and opportunities we might not otherwise see.

We believe that by being a high performance team, which maximizes the power of different opinions, perspectives and cultural references, we will succeed in our mission. Our focus on diversity and inclusiveness is integral to how we serve our clients, develop our people and play a leadership role in our communities.

The diversity and inclusiveness initiative will include the development of an overall roadmap, along with the associated programs, plans, actions and objectives. Oversight and implementation of those programs will be the responsibility branch managers and the responsible people designated above.

Further information on this initiative is found in attachment 5

6) RECRUIT AND PLAN FOR SUSTAINING THE CHAPTER’S HIGH STANDARD OF PERFORMANCE [Gus Ferracane, George Safford]

The primary objective is to sustain and develop our capabilities over the long term. The effort to achieve Chapter of the Year and the high standard of performance it represents is wasted if we cannot maintain that level of excellence over a long period of time.

Leadership positions (officer, branch manager, committee chair,) must have a written job description, reviewed and updated annually, stating key responsibilities.

A transition plan needs to be developed so minimal momentum is lost as the chapter changes leadership.

The Executive Committee must identify current members and outline a specific training plan to insure we can fill current and future positions in support of our mission and the Score Fox Valley Strategic Plan.

Membership committee must be expanded to include an additional leadership position to focus on soliciting new members that align with organizational requirements short and long term.

By branch and chapter annually identify new members needed and specific skills necessary to support organizational growth.
By branch and chapter develop a plan stating the best method on how, where, when and who will find new members that align with required needs.
Aggressively seek, target and solicit new members that fit our SCORE profile and that have sincere interest to learn and grow into a leadership role.

After new member on boarding the Branch Chair, New Membership Leader and Training Chairman work with office incumbents to track the identification and training of potential successors. Leadership positions should be linked to other formal positions in the chapter to provide rotation of duties and enrichment of organizational mission and vision

METRICS