Things like organizational culture and design can sound boring, abstract, or superfluous, but to build an organization that is going to last, they need to be considered from the outset. There are many tools for assessing the existing organizational style of your organization and/or learning how to adjust it.

Once you have decided how you will handle power in your organization you are ready to consider basic logistics such as your fiscal structure. Most independent SSPs are organized as charitable organizations (nonprofits), which have legal and tax requirements. There are several ways that harm reduction groups have organized themselves in order to meet those requirements.

A part of any well-functioning harm reduction organization is regular organizational and strategic planning.

A mission statement is a short statement about the purpose of the organization. This sometimes includes a description of the organization, what it does, and its objectives.

Values statements, often written as “Principles of Unity” or “North Star Statements”, encapsulate the full values and aspirations of the organization. These statements help define the culture of the organization and services it provides

Strategic and implementation planning begin with a SWOT analysis. This analysis of an organization’s position in the market was first developed for the Stanford Research Institute by a management consultant named Albert Humphrey and his team in the 1960s.

Strategic planning is setting goals and objectives given the SWOT analysis, determining actions to achieve goals, and mobilizing resources to execute those actions as a part of an implementation plan. In the context of formal program planning and grant writing, goals differ from objectives in that goals are about long-term, “big picture” outcomes while objectives are shorter-term outcomes that are clearly measurable.

Succession planning is the process of preparing for large transitions, often in leadership, in an organization. Harm reduction leaders agreed that it is never too soon to start succession planning and that not doing so can lead agencies to serious issues with programmatic stability in the long term.

Implementation planning is the final step in the planning process. This is where specific dates for achieving goals and mini-goals are made. This often seems like a step that organizations at the end of a long planning session can defer. Though this can be tempting, implementation planning is one of the most crucial steps in the planning process. It is critical to ensure you turn good intentions into actual outcomes.