Before the Strategic Plan: Where Grounded by Nature Foundation Is Starting From

I met Lara and Chastin McLeod a few months into incorporating Grounded by Nature Foundation. No programs running yet. A website with eight different ideas on it — nature connection, shelter dog rehabilitation, agriculture, outdoor education, veteran support, and more. The mission was already clear in their heads. What they had was more energy than structure.

That's my favorite kind of client to get in the door. Not because the mission needs fixing — it almost never does — but because "mission clear, sequencing not" is a problem I can actually help solve, fast, and watch move.

Starting with the unglamorous stuff

We didn't open with a mission statement. We opened with a questionnaire: what's actually running today, what's aspirational, what's been spent, how many hours two people can realistically give this in a week. Some of the answers were exactly what you'd expect from a young nonprofit — a little money out of pocket, a board still finding its footing, more ideas than capacity to run them. None of that is a problem. It's just the starting line, and it's a lot easier to build from once someone says it plainly.

Then, the part I actually look forward to: narrowing

Eight program ideas is a lot for two people and no funding history yet. The conversation isn't "which of these is good" — they're all good. It's "which one gets to go first, and what has to be true before the next one gets its turn." For Grounded by Nature, that's the dog rehabilitation program: real dogs, real rehabilitation, real placements with people who could use a steady, four-legged reason to get outside. Everything else isn't gone. It's parked, waiting on land, funding, or simply more hours in the week.

Alongside that, there's a list of things that don't photograph well: opening a dedicated bank account, picking a bookkeeping system that doesn't cost anything to start, figuring out exactly what a county land bank wants to see in a development proposal, deciding which of four board members owns which task. None of it is exciting. All of it is what makes the exciting part possible later.

We're mid-build right now — no case study numbers to report yet, and that's fine, that's just where this stage of the work always is. What's next is more working sessions, more narrowing, and eventually a plan two founders can actually use instead of a document that sits in a drawer.

I'm looking forward to watching this one take shape — not because I know exactly how it ends, but because I don't yet. That's usually when the work is best.