The major difference between strategic planning and long range planning is in emphasis. Long range planning is generally considered to mean the development of a plan of action to accomplish a goal or set of goals over a period of several years. The major assumption in long range planning as that current knowledge about future conditions is sufficiently reliable to unable the development of these plans. For example, in the late fifties and early sixties, the American economy was relatively stable and therefore predictable. Long range planning was very much in fashion, and it was a useful exercise. Because the environment is assumed to be predictable, the emphasis is on the articulation of internally focused plans to accomplish agreed upon goals.
The major assumption in strategic planning, however, is that an organization must be responsive to a dynamic, changing environment. Some would argue that this was always the case. Nonetheless, in the nonprofit sector a wide agreement has emerged that the environment is indeed changing in dynamic and often unpredictable ways. Thus, the emphasis in strategic planning is on understanding how the environment is changing and will change, and in developing organizational decisions which are responsive to these changes.
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