The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

The Integrated Action Plan

With so many threads making it up, the initiative tapestry is all but guaranteed to unravel unless there is a careful plan to keep all the stitches in place. In fact, the simple word plan is somewhat inadequate; because so many elements need to work in unison, a better term is integrated action plan (IAP). The IAP is integrated because it brings together, in one document, all the plans for grantmaking, evaluation, strategic communications, social marketing, bringing to scale, and policy work. The IAP is an action plan because it lays out what is slated to happen, when it is scheduled to happen, and whose responsibility it is to make it happen. And, for all these activities, the IAP includes a timeline and a budget. ...