Foundation/Strategy Retreat
Mozilla Foundation Strategy Retreat FAQ
What are MoFo Strategy Retreats?
MoFo Strategy Retreats are 2-day sprints that aim to help us create forward momentum towards our strategy and address a high-impact challenge. In addition, they serve to:
- Keep us focused on how we can advance our external impact
- Create organizational elegance by aligning outcomes of Strategy Retreats with ongoing planning, All-Hands, Board conversations and other programs where helpful.
- Build more participation and familiarity with the strategic planning process across the organization.
Why did we decide on this approach?
The MoFo executive team (Mark Surman, Angela Plohman, Ashley Boyd) has been exploring ways to help advance the strategy through cross-functional, collaborative thinking around impact. The retreats started in 2017 to provide an opportunity for people at different levels to engage in strategy, and to practice together how we solve specific challenges.
How do Strategy Retreats fit into our regular planning cycle?
We’ll host Strategy Retreats twice per year. The first retreat will take place in the spring, early enough in the year for us to examine where we may need extra focus and attention. The second retreat will happen in the fall, where we’ll focus on the next year’s planning cycle.
How are the themes and attendees decided?
The MoFo executive team will define the theme and outcomes, and select participants for each retreat. Attendees for each retreat will vary depending on the theme, to bring a diversity of insight and expertise from across the organization. They will include MoFo staff from across the organization in varying roles and levels, along with external participants. Themes will be selected that can be advanced in a few days between the executives, MoFo staff and external parties.
Who is designing/facilitating the Strategy Retreats?
Andi Abele and Stephanie Ryan from The Coaching Studio will design and facilitate the retreats. Andi has been working with the executive team for several years and has attended several All-Hands. The Coaching Studio will continue working to support the Executive Team and the organization as a whole through strategic planning.
What is the expectation of participants after the retreat?
Participants in the strategy retreats are not cohorts. They are invited based on their expertise and opinions as it relates to the theme of the retreat. They may continue to consult or work on the outputs of the retreat after the fact, however that is usually determined on a case-by-case basis. There are some expectations for work that participants will engage in both before and after the retreat.
- Before
- Complete any pre-reading/viewing/assignments in advance of the retreat
- After
- Share back the experience and takeaways with their teams, and also perhaps during a staff call
- Participate in a 1:1 feedback discussion about the retreat
Previous strategy retreats
April 2017
Theme: Increase impact and momentum around implementation of how MoFo drives public demand for better privacy and security. We want to create a space in which our combined issue, messaging, campaign and network expertise will strengthen our existing plans for raising public understanding of–and action in support of–better Internet privacy and security.
Core questions include:
- What are core privacy and security issues emerging globally in which MoFo can make a unique and important impact in 2017?
- How do we use the Mozilla Network for these themes and campaigns?
- What other existing resources can we leverage to develop the most impactful results in these areas and how?
- What new resources / approaches / actions do we need to cultivate in order to create the most impact in this area in 2017 and how?
The outputs from this retreat heavily influenced planning around our mass market education “Privacy by Default” campaign, as well as furthered thinking around our grantmaking strategy related to privacy and security themes/projects/etc.
April 2017 Participants
| Angela Plohman | Jen Caltrider |
| Ashley Boyd | Lainie DeCoursy |
| Brett Gaylor | Lotta Rao |
| Chris Lawrence | Mark Surman |
| Chrystian Rodriguez | Meghan McDermott |
External participants:
- Camille Fischer - Former Obama Administration Policy Advisor, White House National Economic Council
- Josh Levy - Campaign strategist and digital rights advocate
- Sarah Aoun - Digital Security Trainer with Research Action Design (RAD)
August 2017
Theme: During this Strategy Retreat, we’ll look towards where we want the Internet health movement to be five years from now, and we’ll examine in detail why this work is important now, what to focus resources on in the final year of our 3-year strategy, and how we can increase our external impact, with an eye towards our future ambitions for the movement.
We’re not changing the strategy or programs for 2018. We are, however, taking a stance on focus and simplicity for the initiatives within in each program area.
- Shape the agenda = Internet Health Report and related research/initiatives
- Connect leaders = $ to support leaders and their work in the movement
- Rally citizens = campaigns to educate and motivate people to take action; asking companies and governments to pay attention to internet health
We’ll also explore initiatives that support the above programs - including MozFest and a digital engagement strategy. Also key will be connecting these initiatives to each other and to the overall movement.
This retreat helped kick-off our planning for 2018. We were able to step back and dig in on deeper levels around WHY our work matters and is urgent, while also generating concrete ideas for how we might take this work forward in the next 18 months. Outcomes included draft objectives for 2018 and plenty of content that now lives in our strategy brief.
August 2017 participants bios
| Amy Schapiro | Juan Barajas | Paul Johnson |
| Angela Plohman | Kasia Odrozek | Rizwan Tufail |
| Ashley Boyd | Lainie DeCoursy | Sam Burton |
| Chris Lawrence | Lindsey Frost | Sarah Allen |
| Cori Zarek | Lotta Rao | VojtechSedlak |
| Hana Sun | Mark Surman | Will Easton |
| Jesse Von Doom | Michael Auckland |
External participants:
- Betsy Hoover, Partner and Co-Founder of Higher Ground Labs & 270 Strategies
- Kirstie Whittaker, Mozilla Fellow for Science Alumna
- Tom Liacas, Senior Strategist, NetChange Consulting
May 2018
Theme: During this Strategy Retreat, we will explore how MoFo can thrive in the long-term and build on our success to date for greater impact in the world. Starting with a review of our current programs, we will work to explore how we can build excellence as we maximize impact, expand global reach and foster long-term sustainability. We will use the MoFo program evaluation report (see Pre-Reading) as our core document and will draw insight, ideas and inspiration from each other and external sources.
May 2018 Participant bios
| Amira Dhalla | Lainie DeCoursy |
| Angela Plohman | Mark Surman |
| Ashley Boyd | Melissa Romaine |
| Jairus Khan | Sara Haghdoosti |
| Josh Wolf | Sarah Watson |
| Juan Barajas |
External participants:
- Chris Stone, Fmr Pres, Open Society Foundations
- Marc Solomon, Freedom to Marry
- Rashad Robinson, Color of Change