In 2014, the Alaska Marine Conservation Council (AMCC) celebrated the organization’s 20th anniversary. As part of this milestone, AMCC sought to prepare an updated strategic plan for their next five years, 2015-2020. Agnew::Beck was hired to assist the Alaska Marine Conservation Council through the planning process. To kick off the effort, Agnew::Beck facilitated a half-day board training and strategic planning work session with the AMCC Board of Directors. The group identified a broad range of past and current stakeholders and partners as individuals to interview. To increase their engagement in the process, a small group of current AMCC board members conducted a portion of the interviews. To build capacity and help them prepare, Agnew::Beck conducted an interview training with board members. The focus of the training was how to effectively conduct qualitative interviews, and to review a series of templates and tools Agnew::Beck developed for the interview process, including recruitment scripts, interview templates, and a tracking spreadsheet to provide additional support to the process. Agnew::Beck conducted a majority of the over 30 scheduled interviews and compiled the results into an “emerging themes” document that acted as the foundation for the revised 2015-2020 strategic plan. Later, Agnew::Beck facilitated a visioning session with AMCC current and former board members and staff, along with funders, partners and other key stakeholders. Agnew::Beck worked with AMCC to condense the results from interviews and the visioning session into a succinct strategic plan.
