#usa dance

Shawn Fisher, candidate for Senior Vice President, was interviewed for this piece and is credited here as Editor-in-Chief of the American Dancer. Shawn is a tenured professor at BYU-Idaho where he has overseen almost 20 ballroom classes per semester for the last 17 years. He has been a volunteer with USA Dance, college programs and youth groups for almost 25 years.

Both are running on the VOTE United We Dance ticket and would make excellent leaders for USA Dance. Vote for them and their running mates Michael Brocks, for Treasurer, and Greg Warner, for Secretary.

VOTE United We Dance has been advocating for strategic planning for the organization as one of the team's central messages. What is strategic planning? Why is it important for USA Dance?

Strategic planning is a process by which an organization engages in a thorough review of where it has been and where it is going. It is a management tool that helps the organization define or re-define its mission and state or re-state its vision. The process helps the organization develop a plan to guide its development over the course of several years, for example, the next three to five years. In essence, it is a way for the organization to create a road map for the future.

Yang Chen, candidate for National President, has experienced firsthand the benefits of strategic planning for AABANY, the bar association that he belongs to and for which he serves as Executive Director. As stated in a response to a question posed by dancega on this blog:

With a leadership team that came together in unity to grow and strengthen AABANY, we engaged other leaders within the organization to participate in a rigorous and much-needed strategic planning session under the guidance of the ABA [American Bar Association]. It resulted in energizing all of AABANY’s leaders at the time to commit to a mission, plan and vision for the organization stretching over many years.

That initial strategic planning session was so successful and energizing that AABANY has gotten into the regular habit of holding strategic planning sessions every few years. We just completed our last round in 2012.

For AABANY, the results of our strategic planning process has helped our leaders not just manage the organization -- it has actually helped us lead it in a direction that was set through a collaborative process among the leadership. That leadership included not just officers on the Board; it drew from past presidents and Board members as well as committee chairs and others we identified as being potential future leaders.

Since AABANY engaged in strategic planning, the organization became unified and focused. It helped the leadership develop new ideas for generating revenue and create programming for the members and the community of Asian American lawyers in New York. By identifying yearly membership targets, it helped the association increase memberships from year to year. The association's budget doubled over the last few years and AABANY is now more active than ever. Over the past several years, AABANY has been on a continual upward trajectory. 

VOTE United We Dance believes a similar, formal process of strategic planning is needed now for USA Dance. USA Dance has come a long way in the last five decades and for it to continue to progress and move forward in the next five decades, we need to understand where we have been and where we are going, or better yet, where we want to go.

For example, USA Dance has two distinct populations that it currently serves: social dancers and DanceSport athletes. Their needs, wants and goals for being part of USA Dance may not always be in alignment. At times, they seem to completely diverge and move in opposite directions. Can USA Dance continue to serve effectively both segments? If the answer is ‘yes,’ how do we achieve this goal? If the answer is ‘no,’ what are the implications for the future of the organization?

The above is just one of many probing questions that USA Dance must ask itself as part of a strategic planning process. By asking these difficult questions, USA Dance can honestly assess and evaluate where it stands as an organization, what its values are and what it needs to do if it wants to thrive and grow for years to come.

USA Dance needs to undergo a formal strategic planning process for many reasons:

It helps leaders at the national level develop an overall view of the state of the organization, where it wants or needs to go, how to get there and set priorities for the short, mid and long term.

The plan can be shared with regional and chapter leaders to give them a sense of the mission and vision for USA Dance and help guide them in fulfilling their leadership and management roles at the regional and chapter level.

One of the things that an experienced and qualfiied Executive Director may want to see in considering working as an Executive Director for USA Dance is a strategic plan so that he or she can better understand the organization’s mission, vision and values and then evaluate whether he or she can effectively serve those purposes and goals.

Potential funders or grantors may ask for a strategic plan from USA Dance to determine whether giving money to the organization fits, furthers or promotes that funder’s or grantor’s mission and values.

The second part of our answer to Arlene Yu's question comes from Michael Brocks:

How we can grow, where we could and should be: Our team is thankful to all the volunteers who have taken USA Dance from its origins as USABDA to present day, nearly five decades later. No organization can last nearly half a century without truly dedicated volunteers whose love and passion for the organization carry it through the years, year after year after year. We thank you all for your service.