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In 2022, FinMango spearheaded a strategic planning team that consisted of eight thoughtfully picked Mangoes – Katherine Lordi, Ojasvinee Singh, Bruna Chixaro, Tobias Abramenko, Gautham Kannam, Avneesh Sawhney, Dominic Julian, Scott Glasgow – and one facilitator – Chris Shannon. Each member was carefully selected based on their availability and skill sets related to project management, communication, stakeholder voice, and membership voice.
The goal of the team was to consider where the organization was; what we wanted to see happen over the next five years; and formulate a plan for how to achieve the goals. A BIG component of the process was assessing our past mission and adjusting as needed to ensure it’s aligned with the impact we are seeking to achieve.
PREVIOUS MISSION: to make financial literacy and inclusion universally accessible and useful.
During the strategic planning process, our time was spent surveying, mapping the financial education ecosystem, creating empathy maps, and conducting supplemental research. We did this to identify a potential target population, define the problem we are trying to solve for that population through our collective efforts, and to use this information to revise our mission statement and draft a vision statement to guide our work in the coming years.
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During this process, we realized FinMango’s work aligned with the “complex,” or systems, context. This implied that our approach should be about experimentation with an emphasis on probing, sensing, and then responding.
Though a complex system may appear predictable, hindsight does not lead to foresight because at the end of the day, external systems constantly change. This means that we cannot predict what will happen and that the system is dynamic. Solutions can’t be imposed; rather, they emerge from the circumstances and are often put into action through influence.
Moving forward, it was evident – thanks to the community survey – that our work should focus on the complex context of young adults around the world and their financial stability. More specifically, we should focus on supporting that stability to young adults in times of transition.
Financial health is influenced by so much more than just knowledge and that a tool that benefits one person might not help another. Accordingly, we decided FinMango will no longer be a player in the crowded financial education world. There are so many other great organizations in the financial education space and rather than compete, FinMango will work to elevate them to partners and coalitions looking for financial education content.
At the conclusion of the process–on National Mango Day – we announced the new journey FinMango was embarking on, with its new focus to solve complex problems that endanger the financial health of young adults in transition.
Looking back, we are so thankful to Chris Shannon for facilitating the strategic planning process and for all the thoughtfully picked mangoes that served on the team – Katherine, Tobias, Dominic, Ojasvinee, Bruna, Avneesh and Gautham! In just 15 weeks, they drastically altered the direction of FinMango for the better and I am deeply grateful for their contribution. Please reach out to any of these members if you have questions.
Looking ahead, we’re currently building a roadmap with the following master plan:
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