Legal Assistance to the Elderly (LAE)
Project: Strategic Planning
Legal Assistance to the Elderly (LAE) engaged Lyons-Newman Consulting to create an inclusive process for a growth-oriented five-year strategic plan.
For over 40 years, LAE has provided free legal services that protect and advance the right of San Francisco’s seniors and adults with disabilities to be housed, healthy, financially stable, and safe.
LAE has quadrupled its staff over the past five years and is poised for more growth, thanks to its high quality legal services and case success rate combined with an increased need among older adults and adults with disabilities. LAE’s leadership team needed a clear strategy to build upon its strong foundation and intentionally prepare for future expansion.
Engaging the voices of LAE’s clients and community partners provided an initial compass to steer the strategic planning process. Using interactive facilitation techniques and tools such as our online virtual whiteboard, our team facilitated engaging, challenging, interactive, and fun team-building planning sessions. Through interactive dialogue and ideation sessions, LAE’s board and staff assessed the organization’s landscape and unique capabilities and explored and ultimately decided on priorities for the next five years.
The strategic plan articulates LAE’s theory of change and commits it to priorities that the board and staff are aligned and driven to implement together, including:
• Expanding program and service capacity, particularly for seniors and adults with disabilities needing support to retain their housing or public benefits. In broadening these services, LAE will deepen its holistic approach by providing expanded social work support in concert with legal support services.
• Deepening LAE’s presence in San Francisco’s communities by expanding legal clinics in diverse neighborhoods and at additional community partner organizations, and by extending LAE’s multilingual and multicultural staff capacity.
• Enhancing LAE’s visibility with clients, partners, policy-makers, and donors, including by building regional and city-wide networks of legal services organizations that serve seniors.