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The Council began SAA’s strategic planning process for 2026–2028 at its in-person Council Meeting (November 17, 2025), which was facilitated by Katherine Kim, co-executive director at Educopia. SAA hired Educopia to offer consulting support for the strategic planning process in the fall of 2025. To prepare for this in-person meeting, Kim conducted a workshop with a small group of SAA Fellows about SAA’s strengths, opportunities, and aspirations, and attended an Executive Council meeting to introduce the process. From December 2025 to February 2026, Educopia built outward from the work done during the November 2025 Council Meeting by convening and facilitating a short-term working group composed of Council and staff. This group created a first draft of the strategic plan.
SAA’s final plan will be separated into two major parts: an association-level strategic plan led by SAA Council and staff (Part 1) and a process to support component groups in mapping their activities and goals to SAA’s strategic goals (Part 2). It will also include a dashboard meant to serve as a living document to support ongoing, flexible project management. Details and workflow for this dashboard will be shared in May or June 2026, after leads begin to populate details.
SAA Town Hall: Strategic Plan Recording (April 2026)
What is the purpose of this Strategic Plan? What makes this different from SAA’s previous plan? Why does an association need a strategic plan?
The Strategic Plan is a framework to support SAA in articulating its longer-term organizational goals and priorities. The level of focus in the Strategic Plan is broad by design—this document is meant to shape the direction of SAA in the coming years.
The 2026–2028 Strategic Plan is process-driven, aiming to be simple, flexible, and forward-thinking rather than prescriptive and granular. The outline of specific tasks and outputs will be delegated to appropriate leads, composed of Council and staff in Part 1, as well as all component groups in Part 2. Leads will be tasked with project-managing their area of the Strategic Plan.
What is the purpose of this Strategic Plan? What makes this different from SAA’s previous plan? Why does an association need a strategic plan?
The Strategic Plan is a framework to support SAA in articulating its longer-term organizational goals and priorities. The level of focus in the Strategic Plan is broad by design—this document is meant to shape the direction of SAA in the coming years.
The 2026–2028 Strategic Plan is process-driven, aiming to be simple, flexible, and forward-thinking rather than prescriptive and granular. The outline of specific tasks and outputs will be delegated to appropriate leads, composed of Council and staff in Part 1, as well as all component groups in Part 2. Leads will be tasked with project-managing their area of the Strategic Plan.
The Strategic Plan is meant to serve as a north star for all SAA members. SAA, in its various constellations (Council, component groups, staff, working groups, etc.), will be encouraged to guide its actions and priorities around the strategic areas. This ensures that SAA as a whole is in alignment, harnessing the distributed nature of its various groups while also still moving in the same direction.
How will SAA maintain communications and transparency about the strategic planning process?
We define transparency as a quality or a condition of openness in relation to SAA’s Strategic Plan. We endeavor to cultivate this openness by instituting effective and routine communications (including information around the activities, projected timeline, and rationale for each); updating this frequently asked questions page to point to resources, information, and context; clarifying specific roles, responsibilities, and decision-making expectations for members, component groups, leadership, and staff; and seeking input from stakeholders through direct email, town halls, surveys, and pilot testing. If you have any questions, please feel free to email saapresident@archivists.org.
How will members be involved in the strategic planning process?
Individuals (including members, non-members who are part of the SAA community, former members, and other stakeholders) will have the opportunity to provide written feedback on the first draft of Part 1, participate within appointed groups and sections for the development of Part 2, and attend SAA town hall meetings.
How will members be involved in the Strategic Plan?
The Strategic Plan is designed with member engagement in mind. From the planning process to implementation and assessment, members will be asked to volunteer and participate in key activities. Members will engage either through their component groups or individually through volunteer requests, as well as through participation in town hall meetings and surveys. Leads of Part 1 will be explicitly asked to consider member participation and input in their planning process. Part 2 will support members in articulating their group’s goals in relation to SAA’s overall strategic goals.
Why is the plan in two parts? Where does membership fit into Part 1?
The plan is in two parts to support distributed work. Part 1 will have a concrete action plan with a dashboard at the end of the planning process to ensure that SAA moves forward strategically and with accountability, but the areas around advocacy, sustainability, fostering an inclusive and equitable professional community, and creating new programming as well as improving existing programming should be relevant more broadly. Members may not necessarily see themselves in every part of the Strategic Plan, particularly the more granular activities, but it is being designed with the hope and intention that their individual or component group participation will advance SAA’s overall strategic goals. Part 2 was created as scaffolding to help support component groups in translating their group’s work to map SAA’s priorities for the upcoming years. Through Part 2, members are asked to shape their group’s goals with Part 1 in mind so SAA as a whole can align its strategy and its actions collectively and flexibly.
What is the timeline for the process and plan?
The Strategic Plan is tentatively set to end in December 2028 (2.5 years currently). The official end date is currently flexible and will be finalized over the course of this planning process.
More details to come via the Strategic Dashboard (coming soon).