Strategic Planning

During its 30-year history, the Mt Baker Housing Association has achieved great success by acquiring dilapidated apartment buildings in Seattle’s Rainier Valley and refurbishing them into safe and comfortable housing units for low-income residents. More recently, the organization created an innovative program to obtain and clean-up contaminated properties where new affordable housing will be built. As they turned this corner to become a housing developer with appropriately lofty goals, they called on Catalyst to help guide them through a process to create a new five-year strategic plan.

Catalyst worked with organizational leadership to create a planning process that built upon the committee structure Mt Baker Housing already had in place. The process kicked-off with Catalyst facilitating a five-hours discussion for the Board and staff to consider the organization’s current position in the community and their mission, their long-term goals, and various strategies to reach their goals. Subsequently Catalyst met with each of the six committees to discuss and craft their proposed workplans, which ultimately became chapters of the organization’s five-year plan. During the planning process the full Board received updates on the committees’ work and ensured that all the workplans dovetailed with and supported each other’s goals and plans. The process led to more than an organizational workplan; the Board and staff share a common vision for the future and everyone understands their role in how to get there.