by Jen Levy, ANCA Executive Director
During ANCA’s 2026 Winter Strategic Planning Retreat, we asked ourselves a simple question: Is there anything we should stop doing?
For organizations like ANCA, growth is often measured by what we add, including new programs, new services, and new initiatives. But sustainability, effectiveness, and long-term impact depend just as much on what we choose to simplify or stop doing. Without intentionally creating space, even the most mission-driven organizations risk becoming overextended and unable to respond to emerging needs.
With that in mind, the ANCA board and staff engaged in a structured conversation that included these questions:
- What are we doing out of habit rather than clear impact?
- Where does the effort required feel out of proportion to the benefit?
- What work may have served ANCA well in the past but feels less essential now?
- What might we stop, pause, or simplify to make room for more important work?
- If we don’t stop or change anything, what does that mean for our capacity going forward?
These questions were not about criticism; they were about clarity. Before beginning, we took care to create the right conditions for an honest and productive discussion. Staff needed to feel comfortable speaking openly with the board, and everyone needed to understand that ideas raised in this space were not immediate decisions but inputs for future reflection. Establishing that psychological safety allowed for more candid insights and reduced the natural hesitation that can arise when questioning existing work.
We framed the conversation in three categories: what we might stop entirely, what we might pause, and what we might simplify or redesign. This distinction proved important. Not all work that feels burdensome needs to disappear; sometimes it needs to evolve. In other cases, a temporary pause can create the space needed to reassess value and alignment.
This was not ANCA’s first experience with this kind of reflection. We had a recent precedent that demonstrated the value of stepping back and reevaluating long-standing practices. After hosting two years of a Virtual Summit during the COVID pandemic, we used our 2022 Winter Retreat to rethink our in-person Summit. That process led to adapting the schedule to include more networking opportunities and to one of our most significant changes: eliminating the Summit Auction.
For many organizations, auctions are a familiar and often expected fundraising tool. For ANCA, however, the conversation revealed that while the auction had historically generated revenue, it also required substantial time, energy, and logistical coordination. More importantly, it did not align as strongly with our goal of fostering meaningful relationships within our community. By letting go of the auction, we redirected our efforts toward more relationship-centered fundraising strategies and approaches that better reflected our values and created deeper, more sustainable engagement.
That experience reinforced a key lesson: stopping something is not a loss when it creates room for something better aligned with mission and impact.
As our 2026 discussion unfolded, another insight became clear. While we identified areas for potential change, we lacked a consistent framework for holistically evaluating our programs and services. Decisions about what to continue, modify, or discontinue require more than instinct; they require shared criteria that balance mission alignment, financial sustainability, and organizational capacity.
In response, we identified the need to develop a tool that could guide these evaluations more systematically. This led us to prioritize creating a Money/Mission/Management Matrix for future decision-making.
This matrix is intended to help us assess each program or activity across three critical dimensions:
- Mission: How strongly does this work advance ANCA’s core purpose?
- Money: What are the true costs and financial contributions associated with this work?
- Management: What level of staff time, expertise, and organizational capacity does it require?
By looking at our work through these three lenses simultaneously, we will move beyond anecdotal impressions and toward more transparent, data-informed decision-making. Some programs may score highly in mission impact but require unsustainable levels of staff effort. Others may be financially beneficial but less central to our purpose. Still others may sit comfortably in the middle but present opportunities for simplification or redesign.
The goal of this matrix is not to reduce complex work to a simple formula, but to create a shared language for discussion. It allows board and staff to engage in more objective, constructive conversations about trade-offs, priorities, and ANCA’s future direction.
Underlying all of this is a broader mindset shift: the recognition that capacity is finite. Every hour spent, every dollar allocated, and every initiative maintained represents a choice. If we continue to add without subtracting, we risk overloading our systems and people, ultimately undermining the very impact we seek to achieve.
Asking “What might we stop doing?” is therefore not an exercise in reduction for its own sake. It is an act of stewardship. It reflects a commitment to focus, to intentionality, and to aligning our resources with what matters most.
For ANCA, this conversation is ongoing. The retreat marked an important starting point, but the real work lies ahead in gathering data, applying an evaluation framework, and making thoughtful and sometimes difficult decisions. Not every answer will be obvious, and not every change will be easy. But by continuing to ask these questions, we position ourselves to remain responsive, effective, and true to our mission.
In the end, what we choose to stop doing may be just as important as what we choose to begin.
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