The Ohio Energy Project (OEP) has delivered expert energy education resources to teachers, students, families and partners since 1984. OEP empowers teachers and students through experiential learning that impacts Ohio schools, homes and communities. In addition to the challenges of pivoting to virtual programming due to COVID-19, OEP is preparing for the future with a development plan focusing on diversifying their partnerships in Ohio and beyond. They are also reinventing themselves based on their strength as a STEM education provider.
OEP asked Milepost to help them lay critical groundwork as they embark on achieving the following goals:
As OEP prepared their staff and board to contemplate their programmatic and funding challenges with creativity and courage, Milepost’s approach was to begin their strategic revisions through a facilitated SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) workshop and provide next steps as a self-guided process in preparation for their annual board retreat.
The main objectives of the SOAR workshop were to:
Milepost’s deliverables for this project included:
OEP leadership was delighted to learn that the staff and board had similar goals for the organization’s next steps. It was clear there was unity. OEP’s staff was empowered to move forward with strategic planning knowing they were fully supported. The board reported feeling like they had made more progress in two hours than they had in much longer past strategy sessions. There was consensus around the path forward and a strong sense of togetherness following the SOAR exercise, which equipped OEP with the tools to tackle their challenges with strength and purpose.