The Justice Project: Using Strategic Planning to Increase the Impact of Advocacy

©2008 The Bridgespan Group, Inc. Bridgespan is a registered trademark of The Bridgespan Group. All rights reserved.

FEBRUARY 2008

The Justice Project Using Strategic Planning to Increase the Impact of Advocacy

Samantha Levine Allana Jackson Alan Tuck

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Successful advocacy organizations are notable for their ability to mobilize quickly when

events open a promising window for social change. But the more successful such

organizations become, and the broader the agendas they pursue, the more challenging it

can be to keep track of all the possible options for action, let alone to prioritize among

them.

This was the situation The Justice Project (TJP) found itself facing in the fall of 2006.

After a number of significant successes, including the passage of the federal Innocence

Protection Act, TJP was awash in many more opportunities to work for change in the

criminal justice system than it could possibly take on. But in an environment where

tactics may need to change overnight because of a high-profile media story, or where a

Supreme Court ruling can provoke a sudden switch to legislative- rather than litigation-

focused action, it wasn’t clear how the organization’s leaders could establish strategic

priorities months, or even years, in advance.

To help them clarify which options to jump on and which to pass by, TJP’s executive

team engaged in the organization’s first formal strategic-planning process. Their goal

was to strike the right balance: clarifying the organization’s direction and priorities without

stifling the flexibility that is so central to its success.

The Justice Project at a Glance

The Justice Project’s roots trace back to co-founder John Terzano’s experience with the

Vietnam Veteran’s of America Foundation (VVAF), an advocacy and humanitarian

organization the Vietnam veteran also co-founded. VVAF is dedicated to addressing the

causes, conduct, and consequences of war. Currently, it focuses on programs for

soldiers and veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, economic assistance and humanitarian

efforts for war victims, and advocacy efforts for other conflict-related concerns.1 In 1997,

1 VVAF is now known as Veterans for America, and continues to run programs on the ground in the U.S.,

Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

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VVAF was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for its work on the international campaign to

ban landmines.

Fueled by VVAF’s achievements, Terzano was eager to address other social justice

issues. To that end, in 2000 he co-founded and became president of The Justice Project

(TJP), a pair of linked 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) entities dedicated to creating a more

humane and just world. 2

While TJP’s mission is expansive, the organization has focused on criminal justice reform

in the United States. To date, Terzano

and his team have devoted most of

their attention to capital punishment—

an issue that captures public attention

in a way that many other criminal

justice reform issues do not. They

view work in this area as a way to

build momentum for broader criminal

justice reform. (The accompanying

box provides a brief summary of how

the criminal justice system is

organized.)

TJP’s work entails developing,

coordinating, and implementing integrated national and state-based campaigns involving

public education and communication, research, coalition-building, litigation, and

legislation. Over the past six years, these efforts have led to several significant

successes at the federal and state levels. (The sidebar, “Examples of TJP’s Federal- and

State-Level Accomplishments,” provides more detail.)

2 Both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations are operated exclusively for charitable, religious,

or educational purposes, but 501(c)(4) organizations are not subject to the same restrictions on

lobbying activities. Both types of nonprofits are exempt from paying federal corporate income taxes.

Contributions to 501(c)(3) organizations are deductible from the donor’s federal income taxes, while

donations to 501(c)(4)s, with a very small number of exceptions, are not.

The Criminal Justice System

• Criminal offenses include felonies and misdemeanors, both of which may be punishable by prison terms. Felonies are typically more serious in nature, but states vary on which crimes constitute felonies or misdemeanors.

• Each state has its own criminal code, as does the federal government. Ninety-five percent of individuals in the criminal justice system are in a state system.

• A “capital” case is one in which the offender may be eligible for the death penalty if found guilty. The states and the federal government vary in terms of which offenses are eligible for the death penalty. Fourteen states plus the District of Columbia do not have the death penalty.

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Beyond its specific state and federal initiatives, TJP also has maintained an active roster

of broader-based communications and educational work. TJP often pursues these efforts

in response to media reports on a particular court case. For example, TJP’s

communications team has been involved in shaping media messages for a number of

death penalty cases.

In 2005, the organization packaged its policy goals into a “National Agenda”—a set of

eight reforms that would move the nation purposefully towards a fair criminal justice

system. (See box: The National Agenda). TJP developed the National Agenda as a way

Sidebar: Examples of TJP’s Federal- and State-Level Accomplishments

At the federal level, TJP directed all aspects of a multi-faceted, multi-year campaign that culminated in the 2004 passage of groundbreaking federal legislation: the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), the first piece of death penalty reform legislation to be signed into law. The IPA provides funding for DNA testing of individuals who may have been wrongfully convicted and authorizes significant funds to help improve the quality of representation in capital cases.

Another success at the federal level was the Kids Are Different campaign, designed to raise awareness of the fact that children and young adults are mentally, emotionally, and physically different than adults and therefore less culpable for their actions. Through coalition-building and communications work, TJP played a key role in directing a campaign that showed how a national and international consensus against the execution of juvenile offenders had developed. On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the juvenile death penalty in a landmark five-to- four decision.

At the state level, TJP established and then collaborated with the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project to reshape the death penalty debate in Illinois and shine a spotlight on growing concerns with the state’s capital punishment system. TJP acted as a liaison to other national partner organizations. It also worked with the governor’s office to establish a commission that examined failings in the system. (The commission’s report, published in April 2002, is widely viewed as the most comprehensive study of the problems with the criminal justice system and the death penalty. It is available on the web at: http://www.idoc.state.il.us/ccp/ccp/reports/commission_report/index.html.)

Subsequently, TJP and other organizations lobbied state legislators to ensure overwhelming passage of major death penalty reform in November 2003. This legislation contained more than 20 measures intended to respond to the troubling history of wrongful convictions in Illinois. The provisions include: reforming eyewitness identification, recording custodial interrogations, and providing defendants with more access to evidence.

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to guide policy makers in implementing needed changes, and also as an education tool

for policy makers, the media, and the public.

By the fall of 2006, TJP was

working on or coordinating

reform campaigns in four states

(Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, and

Georgia), was involved in or

closely monitoring several

federal-level developments, and

had a full roster of national

communication and education

activities. TJP had entered into

most of this work

opportunistically—a high-profile set of cases had led TJP to begin work in a given state,

for example, or a funder had urged the organization to tackle a new issue. Such

situations continued to present themselves. But both Terzano and Joyce McGee, TJP’s

executive director, were increasingly concerned that the organization was in danger of

spreading itself too thin.

In addition, Terzano and McGee felt that public perception about the death penalty was

changing. While Americans still largely supported it as a concept, faith in some of its

specific applications was eroding. This shift was due in part to the increased national

discourse about the fairness and accuracy with which the death penalty was used. At the

same time, partner organizations were focusing more narrowly on death-penalty-only

issues such as the legality of lethal injection, and fewer funders were open to supporting

broader criminal justice reform. (In fact, The Pew Charitable Trust’s four-year

commitment to funding TJP’s criminal justice reform work was coming to an end in 2007.

Pew’s early investment in TJP had been critical to many of the organization’s

successes.) Such a rapidly-changing environment meant that managing the organization

would only become more challenging.

The National Agenda

• Recording of custodial interrogations • Improving eyewitness identification procedures • Expanding discovery in capital cases • Ensuring standards for the appointment and

performance of counsel in capital cases • Improving forensic evidence testing procedures • Improving standards for admissibility of

accomplice and snitch testimony • Ensuring proper safeguards against prosecutorial

misconduct • Expanding access to post-conviction DNA testing

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Key Questions

To address these concerns, TJP, with the financial support of The Atlantic Philanthropies,

began a strategic-planning engagement with the Bridgespan Group. McGee and Terzano

were joined by five Bridgespan consultants in a highly interactive four-month planning

process beginning in November 2006.

The primary questions the team worked to answer were:

• What were the organizational strengths that had made TJP successful in its work to

date?

• Given those strengths and their knowledge of how social change occurs in the

criminal justice arena, what specific goals does TJP want to hold itself accountable

for in criminal justice reform, over what time period?

• What activities should TJP focus on in order to move furthest toward its goals?

What should the balance of state work, federal work, and communications and

education activities be to achieve the desired outcomes?

• Given the ever-changing nature of advocacy work, how can TJP balance the desire

to hold itself accountable for definite goals, with the need to ensure that the

organization has the necessary flexibility to respond quickly and appropriately to

changing circumstances?

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Understanding TJP’s Strengths

In order to develop a viable strategy, the team felt, they first needed to be able to

articulate the organization’s strengths. TJP had been achieving success, but its leaders

had never stepped back, unbundled their efforts, and thought about why the

organization’s work was effective. What specific approaches, or processes, could the

team identify as significant factors in the organization’s achievements to date?

They began by reviewing TJP’s past successes, including those from Terzano’s

experiences at VVAF. One of TJP’s most important strengths, they realized, was its

ability to find and articulate the right starting point for its work. As Terzano explained, “It is

critical to the success of any campaign to analyze and develop the right point of entry,

and to articulate a careful rationale as to why change is needed. You have to start with a

message that is going to resonate with policy makers and the public to ensure that real

change is possible.”

For example, in 1999, before they had entered into any work to reform the criminal

justice system, Terzano and his staff had studied the people and players involved in the

issue, existing policies and suggested reforms, the relevant political and social processes

that might lead to change, and the existing political landscape. They had also conducted

polling to develop a deep understanding of how the public perceived the issues and what

messages and approaches might resonate most. “For what we wanted to achieve in

criminal justice reform, it was clear how we needed to proceed,” Terzano recalled. “The

morality of the death penalty wasn’t a viable entry point. Issues of innocence, fairness,

and justice were.”

With this key organizational strength articulated, the team began to map its activities in

the three main pathways to reform: state-level work, federal-level work, and broader-

based communications and education efforts.

For its state and federal initiatives, TJP worked primarily through what it refers to as the

campaign model. Each campaign could employ a combination of the major advocacy

tactics—legislation, litigation, communications, research, and coalition-building—to

achieve a very specific goal. The organization’s “Kids Are Different” campaign, for

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example, began with research on adolescent brain development and international

standards for adolescent criminal sentences. TJP then packaged those findings into

materials—brochures, press releases, and talking point papers—that could be used by a

coalition of groups such as the American Bar Association, the American Psychiatric

Association, and the Child Welfare League of America. The organization also distributed

selected materials to the mainstream media to raise public awareness of the differences

of adolescent minds, and to key individuals who might be able to influence Supreme

Court clerks and justices. The team believed that the campaign had been successful

because of this coordinated, multi-pronged approach.

The team also articulated the often-complex relationship among the three pathways.

Each, it seemed, influenced and drew on the others. Legislative reform at the federal

level could lead to legislative reform at the state level and vice-versa. Broader-based

communications and educational activities could create the climate for reform at both the

state and federal levels.

The team used TJP’s work with the Innocence Protection Act to illustrate and prove

these relationships. Beginning in the 1990s, a few states passed laws giving convicted

inmates access to evidence for DNA testing that might not have been available at the

time of trial. Thanks to these laws, some prisoners were cleared of the crimes for which

they had been convicted, resulting in a number of high-profile exonerations. Capitalizing

on the publicity, TJP put together a campaign to craft and support passage of the federal

Innocence Protection Act, which directed all states to allow access to DNA testing. State-

level reform, supported by communication and education, led to federal-level reform.

Reform then traveled back out to the state level, as the passage of the IPA led many

states to enact post-conviction DNA testing laws. In sum, the right pathway (or

combination thereof) depended on the specific opportunities available at the time.

Team members also examined TJP’s state-level success factors in more depth, reflecting

on its work in Illinois, Texas, and Tennessee. At a very high level, the work looked the

same across all three states. The organization had used its ability to identify and

publicize a compelling entry point to build interest and momentum around an issue. It

had then bolstered existing local advocacy efforts, created local groups if none existed,

and provided training needed to carry out future change. With that infrastructure in place,

TJP had then pulled back into a smaller, more supportive role.

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But underneath those similarities were key differences. In Texas, where other established

advocacy organizations were already focusing on capital punishment, TJP’s efforts had

centered on building and strengthening a coalition. By contrast, in Tennessee, where

there had been no advocacy infrastructure, the organization needed to invest

significantly more effort and time, given that they’d been starting essentially from scratch.

Succeeding in a given state, thus, required a tailored effort that took into account other

organization’s activities and capabilities, as well as the state’s political environment.

Homing in on Goals

Armed with an understanding of the organization’s strengths and a more comprehensive

view of the various paths to reform, the team began to articulate TJP’s goals. Which

changes would TJP hold itself accountable for over the next 10 years?

At first, answering this question seemed like a daunting task. Without knowing exactly

what windows of opportunity would be open in the near future, how could TJP know what

it would be able to achieve? To help them get more specific, team members decided to

break the question into three parts and look at each pathway separately.

THE STATE PATH

At a very high level, the team realized that the National Agenda represented a viable set

of goals; the eight reforms were specific enough to allow TJP to measure progress

against them. Putting all of them in place in each state, however, could easily comprise

the organization’s life work. Rather, the team needed to specify how much progress TJP

would hold itself accountable for achieving: Was TJP trying to get reforms enacted in

every state, or only a few? Would a state have to put in place all eight reforms for TJP to

consider it a success? If not, were some reforms more critical than others? And over

what time period did TJP want to observe progress?

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How many states, and which ones?

Given the organization’s available resources, TJP’s leaders decided to focus the

organization’s efforts on the four states in which it was currently active, and to add a

limited number of states in future years. That’s not to say TJP did not endeavor to

advance criminal justice system reform beyond its target states, however. The vision was

that its state reform successes could serve as models for other states in which TJP was

not working actively.

In choosing new states, they felt strongly that decisions would need to be made in real

time—that they could not create a definitive list of which states to target when. They

knew all too well how unpredictable the windows of opportunity were. A state that

appeared unattractive one year might look dramatically different the next after a key

election or a high-profile criminal trial.

They also decided, however, to identify several criteria by which new states could be

evaluated, when the time was right. First and foremost, the opportunity in a given state

needed to align with the National Agenda reforms. Provided it was aligned, TJP would

consider three additional factors: whether TJP had or could acquire the resources to

enable it to work effectively in that state; whether rectifying the presenting issue was

likely to lead to broader systemic changes; and, finally, whether the state was ready in

terms of having available partners, committed supporters, and a politically viable

environment.

How many reforms, and which ones?

Based on TJP’s past experience, TJP’s leaders felt that with a robust infrastructure and

two or more of the eight National Agenda items in place, a state would then be able to

continue implementing further reforms without a substantive TJP presence. The order in

which the reforms were implemented didn’t seem to matter. In fact, the opportunity to

push forward different reforms in one state versus another was one of the places where

flexibility was critically important.

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Over what period of time?

Team members determined that TJP’s involvement in a state would typically last between

four and seven years, depending on the state’s reform-readiness. This estimate informed

a set of annual targets for what TJP could accomplish at the state-level. The annual

targets aggregated up to a 10-year goal of achieving two or more of the eight National

Agenda reforms in TJP’s four current states plus seven to 12 additional states. Over the

same time period TJP would create a robust state-level infrastructure to utilize the

campaign model to carry out further reforms.

THE FEDERAL PATH

The federal criminal justice system accounts for less than 5 percent of all criminal

convictions. While TJP’s leaders felt reforming it was important, there were simply more

opportunities at the state level. As a result, they decided to gear TJP’s federal-level work

only towards completing the work-in-progress to get the Innocence Protection Act fully

funded. Mindful that TJP needed to maintain the flexibility to respond quickly if the

environment changed, however, they also decided to monitor the federal criminal justice

system landscape, to ensure that if a specific threat or opportunity arose, the

organization could consider timely action.

COMMUNICATIONS AND EDUCATION

While TJP’s communications and education work was clearly critical to the organization’s

success, team members also realized that its real value was in supporting the previously-

described state and federal goals. Accordingly, they decided that a specific goal would

not be needed for this area.

They did, however, explore whether the organization’s communications and education

work would need to change in any way to better advance the state and federal initiatives.

Two insights emerged. First, in order for TJP’s reform work in a small number of states to

lead to other states adopting similar reforms, communications and education efforts

would need to highlight the reform successes. Other states would then see the reforms

and independently adopt them. While the organization’s communications activities

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sometimes included this type of work, TJP would need to make these efforts more

consciously and proactively going forward.

Second, in order to help each target state prepare for the time when TJP would exit, the

team determined that the organization would need to build the capacity of local

organizations and individuals to do their own communications and education work.

MAINTAINING FLEXIBILITY

Although team members acknowledged that these goals incorporated important

elements of flexibility, they felt strongly that TJP’s strategy should explicitly recognize the

fact that the organization could shift its activities and still be “on strategy.” Non-target

states could suddenly become ripe for reform; new federal legislation could be

introduced; or a court ruling could lead to rapid changes at either the state or federal

levels. To ensure that the organization would be open to—and prepared for—these

potential shifts in focus, the team articulated an additional goal: to accommodate and

respond to changes in the environment, on an ongoing basis.

Team members acknowledged that this goal sounded vague. But making it a distinct part

of the organization’s strategy had several important implications. It meant that TJP would

have to dedicate resources to monitor the environment, at the federal level and for all

states. It meant that TJP would need to create a process to filter opportunities as they

came along, to determine when action was needed. And it meant that TJP would need to

acknowledge that if a response were warranted, the organization would reallocate

resources as necessary to take action.

Implementation and Progress

With a complete plan in hand, TJP’s leaders have shifted their sights to implementation.

Making the strategy actionable has had implications for almost every aspect of the

organization’s work, beginning with Terzano’s role. The team had agreed that TJP

needed systematically to monitor developments in the criminal justice reform arena at the

federal and state levels. TJP also needed to be purposeful about staying in touch with

key stakeholders and potential partners, in order to ensure that the organization would

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learn, early on, about key opportunities. Last but not least, TJP had to pay more attention

to development and its long-term financial sustainability. Terzano has taken on those

responsibilities and begun to dedicate significant time to them. Nine months later, he

reports that the shift from being in the thick of day-to-day activities to working on longer-

term issues hasn’t always been easy, but he has begun to make progress. As he put it,

“I’ve been so involved in the day-to-day activities at TJP for so long that it’s sometimes

hard to leave that work and focus on the organization’s bigger picture, but I know we

can’t all be involved in everything. I need to take a more external perspective, and I’m

working to do that.”

TJP has also made some important shifts in its state-specific activities. Since the

strategic plan called for TJP’s work at the state level to focus on achieving a subset of

National Agenda reforms and building a robust state infrastructure, TJP staff now have a

clearer vision of success and thus know when it’s time to exit a state. At the end of the

team’s strategic-planning process, for example, TJP had not yet officially exited any

states, though its work in Illinois and Georgia was largely complete according to the new

state-level objectives. TJP has now officially transitioned its work in these two states over

to local organizations, and has moved into a consultative and monitoring role. The team

has also articulated plans for expected transitions in other states in which TJP has a

presence.

The staff has also begun a more conscious effort to monitor developments in a group of

potential target states, to ensure that TJP will be ready to begin work in a newly targeted

state within 12 to 18 months. They have developed a list that includes states where the

death penalty is in active use, and where some base level of discussion about criminal

justice reform issues has already started. These criteria indicate that a given

environment will more likely be receptive to the messages and focus that TJP specializes

in delivering. This scouting work has also given TJP a clearer picture of advocacy groups

and coalitions already working in each potential state. As a result, the organization is

better able to estimate the time and resources it will likely need to invest to make

substantive progress.

Another important change at the state level has been to tailor TJP’s work even more

consciously to meet that state’s particular needs. Now, with a screening process for new

states that yields a more thorough understanding of each state’s reform readiness, the

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organization outlines different ways of working—including different staffing structures,

different consulting needs, and different types of support from national staff—tailored to

complement the resources already present in each state.

At the federal level, implementing the strategic plan has meant refocusing several key

staff positions. With a more complete and explicit understanding of the activities that are

needed to effect change, TJP has begun to bring on board staff with deep knowledge of

many of the tactics used in campaigns (enacting legislative change, litigating, building

coalitions, communicating and performing research)—even if they do not have a great

depth of knowledge about death penalty or criminal justice reform issues. “We realized

that deep ‘content’ expertise—years of work on death penalty or reform issues—was less

important to our work than the ability to manage campaigns and use the tools well,” said

McGee. “Passion for criminal justice reform is important, but you don’t have to have

worked on this specific issue in the past to be effective. While there is a learning curve in

terms of content, the tools are transferable from issue to issue. Some of our best new

hires came from different issue campaigns, but they deeply understand the tools.”

TJP’s goal at the federal level is to obtain full funding of the Innocence Protection Act.

While TJP did not have any other major federal-level work underway at the conclusion of

the planning process, it was involved in strategy sessions and discussions with partner

organizations about possible actions to undertake. With its new focus, TJP’s leaders

have been able to clarify their role in such discussions, ensuring that they are involved

enough to be able to effectively monitor the landscape and take advantage of clear

opportunities, but making no new commitments of organizational resources to campaigns

that are not central to their focus.

The communications function at TJP has been extremely active and important since the

organization’s inception, but the new strategy’s guardrails implied that communications

needed to be specifically focused on supporting work at the state and federal level. By

hiring a new communications coordinator with advanced skills, wrapping up some

commitments to partners on non-core issues, and consciously using a good proportion of

the director of communication’s time to coach and mentor state-level staff, TJP re-

focused its communications efforts.

With regard to the organization’s explicit commitment to flexibility, TJP has identified

certain resources (both dollars and slices of individuals’ time) that can be called upon as

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needed. The organization has also included “placeholders” in its final strategic plan and

budget, which represent unknown but anticipated activities. In the next five years, for

example, TJP anticipates that it will need to run another federal-level campaign, though

the exact nature of that campaign is unknown. The strategic plan includes dollars and

resources, starting in 2009, for that federal campaign. If the campaign needs to occur in

2008 or 2010, or if it requires more or fewer resources than anticipated, adjustments can

be made. But such adjustments will be easier than carving out something that hadn’t

been anticipated at all.

The strategic-planning process also has generated multiple over-arching benefits for TJP.

For one, it has helped TJP staff better understand the effect of their work. There are

almost always dozens, if not hundreds, of groups working on the same or a similar issue.

When success is achieved, it’s very difficult to know how much—or how little—one

organization’s work has contributed. Most advocacy organizations use surrogate

measures, like the number of calls they’ve made or letters they’ve sent to members of

Congress, or the number of articles they’ve been cited in. But those metrics do a poor job

of tracking movement towards the true goal. With its strategy now in hand, TJP can

meaningfully measure the progress it’s making towards its clear and specific impact

objectives.

Above all, the strategy and the process of developing it have resulted in a roadmap that

TJP can use to make choices about future activities, not only in the realm of criminal

justice reform, but also with regard to new social justice issues. The planning process

has also given TJP’s leaders a powerful way to talk with potential funders about the

organization’s work more broadly, and to make a compelling case for funding that will

support the overall organization and not simply specific issues or activities.

“The Justice Project has achieved great success using a social justice change model

developed over the years by John [Terzano] and VVAF,” said McGee. “But after going

through this strategic-planning process, not only have we articulated that model, we have

improved upon it. We are more focused and know where to engage and, perhaps more

importantly, where not to. We’re impressed with how much having a plan has had an

impact on all aspects of our organization.”

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Since completing the plan, TJP has received significant funding for core support and its

state work from The Atlantic Philanthropies. Other funders, including foundations and

individual donors, have also expressed interest in supporting TJP’s work.

Sharing knowledge and insights from our work is a cornerstone of the Bridgespan Group’s mission.

This document, along with our full collection of case studies, articles, and newsletters, is available

free of charge at www.bridgespan.org. We also invite your feedback at feedback@bridgespan.org.