Strategic Planning

The core elements of a standard Jewish camp’s strategic plan are:

• Up-to-date Mission Statement and Vision for the future of the camp
• An assessment of the camp’s current condition, including strengths and areas for improvement
• Up to five agreed upon strategic priorities for the organization to work on over the next three to five years that align with the camp’s vision for the future
• Defined action steps for each strategic priority with a defined person or people responsible and time-frame for completion
• A projected budget that reflects the expectations of the strategic plan

Here is a sample list of strategic goals that are fairly common to many camp strategic plans:

1. Expand and improve camp programs
2. Strengthen governance
3. Create a long-range master site and facilities plan
4. Ensure financial planning or expand sources of revenue with retreats and rentals
5. Increase fundraising to build projects identified in the master site plan

We recommend that your camp’s governing body commit to conducting strategic planning every three years. If it has been a long time since your last strategic plan or your camp has never conducted one before, the process of creating a plan may take up to 8 to 12 months. If you are updating and refreshing a more recent strategic plan, the process isn’t as time consuming. 
 
If your camp is affiliated with JCamp 180, your camp’s mentor can guide your organization through strategic planning. If your organization is not affiliated with JCamp 180 you may benefit from hiring an experienced consultant to lead you through the planning process.
 
JCamp 180 is committed to helping your organization apply best practices to your camp’s strategic planning process. We’ve hand-picked the resources below to get you started. For our full set of resources on this topic, click the “More Strategic Planning Resources” button at the bottom of the page to go to the main Knowledge Center page. You can either further refine your search using keywords or scroll through all the resources.

A master site and facilities plan is an essential tool for overnight camps and increasingly day camps as well. There are two types of plans that may be of assistance as you look into the future.
 
The first is a Master Site and Facilities Plan. This includes a thoughtful look at your camp’s land, buildings, and program. It creates a compressive vision for improving the site over many years of improvements, and projected costs. This kind of plan is often the basis of a capital campaign and extremely helpful to allow the governing board to focus on strategic planning and fundraising.
 
The second is a Master Maintenance Plan. This includes a list of the major buildings and infrastructure of the site, their current condition, life expectancy, replacement costs, and the year that replacement is projected to hit the budget. For example, every cabin has a roof that will need replacement some year. A master maintenance plan will allow the governing body and finance committee to plan for the expenses of replacing the roofs.  

Keep in mind that a current investment in making these plans can help save money in the future and allow camps to minimize possible risks. For example, knowing when the camp will need to replace a septic system could prevent a crisis in a future summer when the system fails. 
 
See the resources below for samples of both plans.

JCamp 180 is committed to helping your organization apply best practices to your camp’s strategic planning process. We’ve hand-picked the resources below to get you started. For our full set of resources on this topic, click the “More Strategic Planning Resources” button at the bottom of the page to go to the main Knowledge Center page. You can either further refine your search using keywords or scroll through all the resources.

You can learn a lot from other Jewish camps, and there are many more resources, tips, and tools from other camps on our Knowledge Center.  If you don’t see that you are looking for here, please try using the search function in the Knowledge Center where many, many more resources are housed. 
 
These samples from other camps have among the most requested items in recent years related to strategic  and facilities planning.

JCamp 180 is committed to helping your organization apply best practices to your camp’s strategic planning process. We’ve hand-picked the resources below to get you started. For our full set of resources on this topic, click the “More Strategic Planning Resources” button at the bottom of the page to go to the main Knowledge Center page. You can either further refine your search using keywords or scroll through all the resources.