Strategic Plan Update

As the 3rd Vice President of the South Carolina State Firefighters' Association, I currently serve as the Chairman of the Strategic Planning Committee. As you know, it is vitally important for an organization of our size to develop a strong and thorough strategic plan. This plan acts as a roadmap by setting short-term and long-term goals for the organization, its staff and members.

And as with any plan, you need to periodically re-evaluate the goals and direction to ensure you are heading in the right direction, or maybe even change direction when needed. We as an Association typically revisit our strategic plan every three years, with the ability to do so at any time as the need arises.

Last year, the Strategic Planning Committee developed a comprehensive survey that was sent out to the membership to aid with updating the strategic plan for this cycle. One of the main goals of the survey was to solicit the opinion of our members on how well they felt the Association was doing in meeting the current goals and to solicit input on the direction the Association should be going moving forward. In addition, the survey also requested ideas for any specific areas within the scope of the strategic plan or outside of it, that may need more attention or immediate action.

The Executive Committee, under the guidance of Executive Director Charlie King and staff, have discussed the results at length in multiple workshops using breakout sessions and various group activities. As of this writing, all of the information gathered from the survey, and the workshops, is being condensed into useable data and will be forwarded to the Strategic Planning Committee. The Strategic Planning Committee will then take all of the information and will update the Strategic Plan based on the input from the members who completed the survey.

Once the Plan is updated, it will be presented to the Executive Committee for final approval and then it will become the Associations’ New Strategic Plan.

Thanks to all who participated in the Strategic Planning Survey.

-Malcolm Burns, Deputy Chief at Dorchester County Fire Rescue