In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing landscape, organizations face numerous challenges that can impact their survival, growth, success, and sustainability. To navigate these challenges effectively, stay ahead of the competition, and achieve their goals, organizations need to adopt a proactive, forward-thinking approach and establish clear guidelines and rules that govern their operations, decision-making processes, and interactions with stakeholders. This is where strategic planning and organizational policies come in.

Caritas India, in partnership with CRS, has been engaging with 13 Regional Fora through Regional Fora Accompaniment programmes that emphasize mainstreaming strategic planning and safeguarding formulation at both Forum and Diocesan levels.

A two-day workshop was organized in Agra from November 14-15, 2024, highlighting the importance of strategic planning and introducing Corporate Strategic Plan frameworks, safeguarding aspects, progress and challenges at Diocesan Social Wing, and good practices on volunteerism engagement.

Fr. Anil Crasta, Assistant Executive Director of Caritas India, set the context of the workshop by highlighting the challenges faced by church organizations. Caritas India’s primary focus is on strategic planning and the safeguarding rollout with its partners across the country. He expressed hope that Caritas India will continue to focus on the concept of resource mobilization over the next five years to support and strengthen partner dioceses financially. This initiative has already been implemented in the Karnataka, West Bengal, and Jharkhand regions.

Mr. Anand K, Head of Partnerships and Strategic Relations from CRS, emphasized CRS’s commitment to developing local leaders. He added that CRS is focused on building the capacity of Regional Forums and partner dioceses in India. As part of a shift in its approach, CRS is now concentrating its support on selected dioceses. Key areas of focus for CRS include Safeguarding Policy, Fundraising, Volunteerism, and Empowering Asia.

Fr. Anil Crasta facilitated the first day’s session, providing a clear understanding of the definition of strategy and adding the perspective from CSR – strategy is a guidebook that sets the direction for the next 3 to 5 years. The importance of strategy is twofold: external – from the perspective of donors and civil society, having a strategy demonstrates foresight; and internal – strategy helps align all functions toward the organization’s vision, providing purpose and direction. He emphasized how to create a strategic response using SWOT analysis, prioritizing thematic areas, conducting pilot studies, mapping resources, using tools for data collection, setting milestones, and other aspects. The Corporate Strategy Plan framework was introduced to the participants, which prioritizes information about the organization, context mapping, organizational capability, organization strategy, measure matrix-tracking, and organization execution.

Fr. Anil Crasta highlighted the significance of the Lenten Campaign, which raises funds for the poor and needy across the country, and discussed the engagement plan of Regional Fora for the next year’s Lenten Campaign.

The second day focused on the progress and targets achieved by the Regional Fora and Diocesan Social Service Societies in rolling out the Safe project. The session highlighted key challenges encountered during the implementation phase, including preparing and collecting evidence for each step of the standards from DSSS, involving the Director in preparation and rollout of Safe standards, providing orientation and refreshers on Safe Standards, conducting monthly catch-up calls for handholding support, facilitating support interactions between CRS staff and DSSS as needed, and preparing action plans for rollout at the DSSS level.

Fr. Anil Crasta gave an overview of volunteerism and the key future engagement roles of volunteers on different platforms – Media, Disaster Management, Fundraising, and Corporate Volunteers. He highlighted that “Caritas India, in the near future, will roll out more volunteerism promotion programs. We are in the planning phase for initiatives such as a volunteer-led resource development program and will collaborate with DSSS partners to support these endeavors.”

Mr. Joseph Mathew, Lead of Khushhaal Bachpan, provided a detailed understanding of volunteerism, its benefits, the Triple S Approach (Self-System-Society), and introduced Caritas India’s Volunteering model, emphasizing Health volunteers, Covid Volunteers, DRR volunteers, Campaign volunteers, Student volunteers, Youth Volunteers, and Intern Volunteers. Brainstorming exercises were facilitated, focusing on expectations (Volunteers-Organization), onboarding, engagement systems and procedures, volunteer retention strategies, and volunteer mapping strategies. This input has contributed to the revision and review of CI’s Volunteering guidebook.

As a way forward, Caritas India has reached out to the Regional Fora to share input/strategies to be adopted for three major factors: registration of volunteers (schools, colleges, professionals & retired professionals), engagement activities (100 days), and campaign plans (5 campaign activities in a year). The participants also shared how they have initiated independent fundraising campaigns and focused on increasing the visibility of their organizations.

One participant expressed that this workshop provided a clear perspective on why strategic planning is important for an organization and how it can be formulated based on the organization’s needs and targets. She now feels confident enough to facilitate training at the DSSS level.