About SMS - 5-Year Strategic Plan

Staff, Faculty and Board

Seattle Midwifery School
5-Year Strategic Plan
(approved by the Board of Directors July 21, 2004)

For a complete copy of the plan, download a PDF version.

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Introduction

In July 2003, Seattle Midwifery School began its most recent strategic planning process by conducting an organization assessment that included interviews with board and staff, staff surveys and an analysis of systems and documents. In October, the board and staff used the information gathered from that assessment to ascertain the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses.

In the fall of 2003, SMS conducted focus groups with major donors, Midwifery Education Program (MEP) students, MEP and Doula and Extension Education Program (DEEP) graduates and faculty and members of sister organizations in the community. After compiling that information and developing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, board, staff and faculty held a day and a half long retreat in January 2004 to review the information and use it to develop the outline of our new mission, vision, values and goals.

From February through April, a “wordsmithing” committee of board and staff crafted the outlines into statements and used an iterative process to incorporate feedback from board, staff and faculty. At the April board meeting, the board approved the mission, vision and values. Meanwhile, a separate strategic planning committee was working to develop comprehensive strategies for the goals that were developed at the retreat. This also involved an iterative process of receiving and incorporating feedback from board and staff. The board approved this portion of the document in June 2004, culminating a year-long planning process.

We could not have created such a comprehensive and responsive plan without the help of many people and organizations. Thanks to everyone who completed surveys, came to focus groups and participated in interviews. Your input was valuable, and your participation was energizing. We are confident that with your contributions, we will remain a vital and enduring community resource.

Thanks also to the Satterberg Foundation for your willingness to fund our strategic planning process.

Finally, thanks to the Seattle Midwifery School board and staff members who contributed countless hours and ideas to the strategic planning process and asked difficult questions with open-mindedness and curiosity. A special thanks to the strategic planning committee (Joanna Bargeron, Tera Schreiber and Scott Fasser) for providing the leadership necessary to keep the process moving forward and the courage to produce an inspirational plan.

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