Strategic planning and market development: sustainable development think tank

By Steve Ting

Within the last nearly two decades after Shin Shin Educational Foundation was established, and with a wide range of co-operation, we brought hope and care for poor rural children, enhanced their education environment, and had played a valuable role. In these years, our goals and works had several major adjustments in responding to the reality: from the early focusing on improving the hardware facilities, to the mid-term software programs (such as teacher training, e-learning, books projects, etc.), to recently establishing the formal representative office in China, we provide more flexible services for Shin Shin schools. At the same time Shin Shin evolved from a United States private foundation to a prestigious nonprofitable organization, and the team is not only made of United States Chinese people, but also include many China domestic volunteers. With the rapid development of the Foundation, along with education, economy, science and technology major environmental changes at home and abroad, in order to more effectively help those in remote and backward rural children, to meet a variety of new challenges and opportunities, it’s urgent to create a long-term strategic planning and market development program. For this purpose Shin Shin Educational Foundation set up a special strategic planning and market development in 2016.

Marketing and Strategic Planning Department is responsible for developing long-term strategic and market development plan. This department consists of five teams, including strategic planning, marketing, market expansion development, strategic partnership establishment and management, donors relationship management.

1. Strategic Planning Group: follow Shin Shin’s purpose, study new development direction, explore, analyze and develop long-term strategies with partners, and try to build China Representative Office, domestic volunteers, and localization. It designs long-term development blueprint and routes for the organization, and also hope for excavating more value for Shin Shin and stakeholders.

2. Marketing Group: planning how to effectively use research, institutionalized, planned process, and specifically established organizations, provide additional value to Shin Shin, schools and children, and also partners. Plan for expanding public awareness of Shin Shin brand.

3. Market Expansion Group: from understanding the needs of beneficiaries, organizational strengths and weaknesses and the potentials, taking it into consideration for both the United States and Chinese volunteers’ energy and potentials, that is, making use of specialty and technical expertise of different social and ecological environments, bidirectional think and seek solutions, find and identify new opportunities, fulfill the needs of beneficiaries, and increase Shin Shin’s value.

4. Strategic Partnership Establishment and Management Group: it’s the way to future survival for Shin Shin to establish and strengthen effective partnerships and strategic alliances. It should be Shin Shin’s DNA to build a partnership culture. A successful partnership will not only help enhance Shin Shin’s educational capability, but also to directly or indirectly improve our financial needs. At present we have a number of important partners, such as educational institutions, Beijing Normal University, Northeast Normal University, Northwest Normal University, Jilin Normal University, Hunan Vocational College of Science and Technology, companies such as Microsoft (China), nonprofit organizations, foundations and associations such as Rotary International ( Rotary), Women in Silicon Valley, the Northeast Association, Qilu Hall, Chinese Sina (Silicon Valley, sail plan), China Guanghua Foundation.

5. Donor Relationship Management Group: As a public foundation, it’s indispensable to have sufficient funds to support various projects. To raise money, it’s a extremely important work to maintain close contacts with donors. Donor relationship management requires careful thinking and institutionalized processing. The focuses are actively cultivating new donors, retaining existing donors, in close contact with them, so that make them having feeling of full participation.