Strategic Plan

The Shriver Center stands ready to face the challenges ahead as we enter a new frontier in the struggle for social justice and race equity.

We are expanding our national networks and building capacity for coordinated action on behalf of people living in poverty, while continuing vital advocacy work in our home state of Illinois. We are developing the infrastructure necessary to support our growth and organizational excellence.

Below are highlights of our strategic plan for fiscal years 2017-2020.

Goal 1: Expand Our National Networks

Significantly increase the national prominence and efficacy of the networks convened by the Shriver Center.

• Expand our networks’ reach through geographic expansion and through strengthened and new partnerships.
• Build network infrastructure and tools necessary for effective functioning.
• Foster collaborations that lead to demonstrably beneficial outcomes for low-income communities and communities of color.
• Continue to serve as experts and authorities among the national community of civil legal aid and equal justice attorneys, media, government officials, and other partners.

Goal 2: Fight Poverty and Advance Racial Justice

Achieve national-level positive change in the fight against poverty and for racial justice.

• Informed by the communities we serve, achieve systemic victories for people living in poverty across a range of issues and elevate three multi-state victories to national change.
• Apply a racial justice analysis to all issues in the advocacy agenda and all programming.
• Build the capacity for litigation internally.
• Create and implement criteria and a decision-making matrix for adding or eliminating network areas, practice areas, and projects.

Goal 3: Organizational Excellence

Build a unified organizational culture at all levels, grounded in our values, through

• evaluation of our organizational management systems,
• implementation of succession planning and leadership development,
• creation and execution of equity and inclusion goals, and
• development of of an organization-wide staffing plan.

Significantly improve our organizational infrastructure through use of appropriate investments, use of operationally appropriate technology, data systems, operations and policies/procedures in order to ensure effective knowledge management, manage our constituent community, and to increase our ability to fight poverty and racial justice.

Become a more visible and influential leader in advancing poverty and racial justice and contribute to delivering effective and consistent communications frameworks that change the public narrative on inequality.

Increase annual revenue to fund program priorities and invest in infrastructure to fight poverty and advance racial justice.