Children’s Institute

Children’s Institute entered its strategic planning process from a position of both strength and urgency. Its work reaches across early childhood education, behavioral health, family support, care coordination, and community services. Its history and reputation run deep. So did the challenge: bring a wide range of programs, people, and systems into greater alignment while responding to growing community needs, shifting funding, and an increasingly uncertain environment.

Our partnership

The central challenge was one of coherence and choice: how to bring the organization’s many strengths into a more connected whole, identify the priorities that mattered most, and translate an expansive vision into meaningful action.

Good Influence designed and led a strategic planning process grounded in evidence and the experiences of people closest to the work. Interviews, focus groups, surveys, organizational data, and extensive engagement with staff, executives, and board members surfaced both the organization’s distinctive strengths and the choices ahead.

The resulting strategy connects vision to execution. It defines how Children’s Institute creates change, establishes a shared set of measures for understanding progress, and focuses the organization around four priorities: delivering more connected support to children and families; strengthening people and culture; improving systems and infrastructure; and securing long-term financial health.

Just as important, the process did not end with a set of aspirations. Each priority was translated into key initiatives, accountable leaders, timelines, resource considerations, and first steps—giving the organization a practical roadmap for moving forward.

What the Work Produced

• A clear theory of change connecting community needs, Children’s Institute’s distinctive role, its approach, and the outcomes it seeks for children and families

• A North Star dashboard with shared measures, defined ownership, and targets for tracking both community impact and organizational health

• Four organization-wide priorities supported by focused initiatives and concrete definitions of success

• Detailed implementation steps identifying accountable leaders, anticipated effort, resource implications, timelines, and immediate action

• A stronger foundation for aligning strategy, programs, operations, talent, technology, finances, and board oversight around a common direction