What is Comprehensive Master Planning?
Many communities are facing very difficult decisions in regard to their future. The needs of congregations are complex and cover multiple aspects of their operations and Sister daily life. This is typically a multi-faceted issue and not so simple to figure out. Planning efforts can start with a simple review of one aspect—say buildings—but that may not look at the full picture, which doesn’t therefore provide enough information to make informed decisions.
A comprehensive look at the challenges each community is facing is the best approach. The question “Do we have enough funds to care for our Sisters?” is many times the spark that leads to the identification of additional factors that need to be addressed. Understanding community demographics is key, but it only provides a piece of the puzzle. Many of the tasks that we will review are interrelated to one another, which makes it even more important to view several of these components in tandem. This allows us to arrive at all the puzzle pieces that create the picture to successful implementation.
Let’s look at the various components that provide for a successful, and more importantly, implementable planning effort.