The leadership of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) recognized that the landscape for HIV and other related health issues was changing in San Francisco, and that they, a large organization with a multi-million dollar budget, had not had a formal strategic plan for over 15 years. To address this, they wanted to hire a consultant to lead a year-long strategic planning process that would incorporate the input of more than 200 staff and over 800 donors, volunteers, clients, and external stakeholders. Facente Consulting was selected during a competitive RFA process.
Facente Consulting used multiple methods to gather community input, including interviews, group meetings, multi-day retreats, online and paper surveys in English and Spanish, town halls, and a series of strategy meetings with a core strategic planning committee. Recognizing that other consultants had more focused expertise with aspects of branding and development, we sucontracted other consultants to ensure the highest-quality results for our client. Finally, we guided SFAF’s board and staff through a process to reimage the organization’s objectives, building on their history of impactful HIV prevention, care, and advocacy and moving into a future focused on fighting for health justice for the communities most impacted by HIV. The resulting plan was built on a commitment to racial justice, sexual health and substance use services, and strengthening community partnerships, as well as an expansion of scope beyond HIV to address sexually transmitted infections, hepatitis C, and San Francisco’s high overdose rate.