Four Topics Your Retreat Must Include

If you want to hold a successful retreat for your board and staff, there are four topics you will want to include on your retreat agenda:

Why does your United Way exist? Most United Ways have been around for decades, so you would think it would be obvious why your United Way exists. But we have found that every time we ask board and staff members to answer the question “Why does your United Way exist?” there are nearly as many answers as there are people in the room. For your United Way to succeed, your board and staff need to agree on the primary reason why your United Way exists today. When you have agreement on why your United Way exists, it makes it easier to set goals, decide what your United Way will do to achieve those goals, and allocate limited resources. Then, you may want to discuss if your mission statement reflects why your United Way exists.

How does your United Way measure success? Once you have agreement on why your United Way exists, your board and staff should discuss how you will measure success. Again, this seems like an easy question to answer, but it is important to carefully consider this question from the perspective of your donors and funders. How you measure success should demonstrate to your donors and funders how their contribution to your United Way makes a difference. Instead of setting operational measures of success, discuss and set impact measures of success for your United Way.

How will you invest in your United Way? Many United Ways are so focused on giving their partner agencies every last dollar they raise, that they forget to invest in themselves. To be successful, it will be essential to carefully consider the capacity and capability of your United Way. Discuss if your United Way has the staff, operations, and facilities to deliver on your mission and what investments should be made in your United Way to most effectively and efficiently achieve success.

What should we stop doing? This might seem like an odd topic to address, but plenty of United Ways keep saying “yes” to every request and opportunity until they realize they don’t have the resources to be all things to all people. The future success of your United Way depends on identifying what you will stop doing, or what you will say “no” to, so that everyone is clearly focused on accomplishing what only your United Way can do.

We cover all four of these topics and more during our New Directions Board and Staff Retreat, with plenty of inspiration and examples of how other United Ways have answered these questions.