by Jen Levy, ANCA Executive Director
As we enter the final year of ANCA’s current strategic plan, ANCA 2025, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to “finish” a plan.
Strategic plans aren’t static documents. They’re a set of shared priorities shaped by our members, tested in real time, and adjusted as the world around us changes. Over the past several years, that world has certainly not stood still. ANCA members are navigating increasing complexity, including climate change, staffing challenges, funding pressures, and evolving community expectations.
Our plan required annual review and reflection to stay relevant. Just as important, it required thoughtful decisions about how to use our limited time, energy, and resources most effectively.
What we’ve accomplished
At its core, this strategic plan was about strengthening leadership across the nature center field while also expanding ANCA’s own organizational capacity.
We have sustained and strengthened ANCA’s organizational capacity and financial stability. We’ve made progress in diversifying our funding through corporate partnerships and individual giving. Our Annual Fund continues to grow, and we’ve become better at telling the story of why this work matters.
We’ve also invested in our systems, our policies, and our team. As a small, remote staff, clarity and communication matter. Strengthening that foundation helps us better serve our members. It may not be the most visible work, but it is some of the most important.
We maintained and advanced best practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Virtual programming has allowed us to reach more people more consistently and in ways that fit the realities of work schedules and budgets. But access is not just about format, it’s also about how we show up as a community.
We’ve been more intentional about creating spaces that are welcoming, participatory, and grounded in shared learning. From facilitation practices to affinity spaces, we continue working to build a community where people feel comfortable contributing, asking questions, and learning in public. This work is ongoing, but it is foundational to who we want to be as an organization.
We also took time early in the plan to define and adopt ANCA’s core values and have worked to stay grounded in them. Values only matter if they guide how we work, how we make decisions, and how we show up for our members.
Our core values have helped us stay steady through periods of growth, change, and challenge. They shape our approach to leadership development, partnerships, staff culture, and member engagement. Rather than treating them as statements on paper, we’ve worked to make them part of our daily practice.
We have remained a leading source of professional development and relevant resources for the field. ANCA CONNECTS has become a cornerstone of that work. What started as a response to a particular moment — the onset of the pandemic — has grown into an ongoing space where leaders come together to tackle real challenges. Participation has grown significantly over the past few years, but more importantly, the depth of engagement has grown. These are not passive webinars. They are working sessions, honest conversations, and opportunities for leaders to learn from one another.
We’ve also expanded opportunities specifically for top-level leaders. Programs like Executive Leaders CONNECTS recognize a simple truth: leadership can be isolating, and having a trusted peer network is essential. This year, we also took a big step adding a Virtual Summit to our programs. We heard clearly from members that access was a barrier for many, and we needed to respond.
We have also worked to refine and strengthen ANCA’s voice in advocacy and civic engagement. We prioritized the issues most relevant to our members and looked for ways to better elevate the work of nature and environmental learning centers across the country.
We’ve learned a great deal throughout this plan.
- Capacity-building work is harder to measure, but it is deeply impactful. When we support a leader, we are not just helping one person, we are influencing an organization and, ultimately, the communities it serves.
- Peer learning remains one of the most powerful tools for change. The collective wisdom in this network is tremendous. Often, our role is simply to create the space for that knowledge to be shared.
- Accessibility is not optional; it is essential. Offering virtual options is not a temporary solution, it is a long-term commitment to meeting people where they are.
- And leaders need space: space to reflect, to ask hard questions, and to work through challenges with others who understand the complexity of their role.
Looking to the future
We have made meaningful progress, but there is still more work to do. We need to continue finding the balance between expanding programs and maintaining focus as a small team. Growth matters, but so does sustainability.
We need to deepen engagement and move beyond one-time participation toward longer-term connection and learning. We need to keep advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in ways that are practical, relevant, and embedded in everyday work. We need to continue clarifying how we show up, what we stand for, and where we can have the greatest impact. And we need to strengthen our financial resilience to continue this work over the long term.
We are beginning to think about our next strategic plan. Like this one, it will be shaped by our members and grounded in the realities of the field. The challenges are not getting simpler. But neither is the strength of this network.
We are looking forward to what comes next.
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