We analyzed 20,582 strategic plans. Get a copy of the full report.
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Vision, goals, objectives, measures, owners, due dates. Pick objectives from a library of 56, measures from 210. Export the plan as a document when it’s yours.
Free to use. No account. Email only to export.
Example plan — City of Metropolis (illustrative). 4 goals, 9 objectives, a measure and a due date on each; four objectives still have no owner. The objectives picker draws on the 56 strategic objective examples below.
| Goal | Objective | Measure | Owner | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A city people can afford to stay in | Increase affordable housing supply | Affordable units permitted YTD | Clarice Strong | 400 units by FY27 | 2027-06-30 |
| A city people can afford to stay in | Reduce unsheltered homelessness | Point-in-time unsheltered count | — | −15% vs 2025 | 2027-01-31 |
| Safe, well-kept neighborhoods | Improve emergency response times | Priority-1 response, 90th percentile (min) | Lance Cummins | ≤ 7:00 | 2026-12-31 |
| Safe, well-kept neighborhoods | Reduce crime | Violent crime per 100K residents | Jimmy Olspon | −8% | 2026-12-31 |
| Safe, well-kept neighborhoods | Well-maintained infrastructure | Pothole response time (days) | Maggie Sawyer | ≤ 4.0 | 2027-03-31 |
| A government residents can see working | Improve reporting and transparency | Public dashboard measures updated on time (%) | — | ≥ 95% | 2026-12-31 |
| A government residents can see working | Modernize permitting | Median business days to issue a permit | — | ≤ 10 | 2027-06-30 |
| A sound financial footing | Ensure favorable bond ratings | Bond rating (Moody’s) | Clarice Strong | Maintain Aa1 | 2027-09-30 |
| A sound financial footing | Grow the local tax base | Assessed value growth (%) | — | +3% / yr | 2027-09-30 |
Reuse freely with attribution. Canonical source: https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/free-tools/strategic-plan-builder
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| Goal | Objective | Measure | Owner | Target | Due |
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Source: ClearPoint Strategy — https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/free-tools/strategic-plan-builderWe’ll email a CSV of your goals, objectives, measures and owners, plus a one-page plan summary. After that, occasional examples from teams doing this work. Unsubscribe in one click.
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That is the pattern we see break first. In a 30-minute session we show how an organization like yours puts a name, a measure and a cadence on every objective — on your real plan, not ours.
83%
of metrics have no owner assigned at all · 272,360 of 327,582 · Jan 2026
76.1%
of plans have never recorded a completed project · n = 7,672
9.2 months
median strategic project · n = 114,927
61.9%
of named owners never wrote a status update · n = 55,222
ClearPoint platform data · 21,000+ strategic plans · 300+ organizations · January 2026 snapshot
A usable strategic plan template has six parts: vision, 3–5 goals, objectives under each goal, a measure per objective, a named owner per objective, and a due date — plus a review cadence. Templates usually stop at the headings; this builder will not export until every objective has an owner and a measure, because 83% of metrics on the ClearPoint platform have no owner at all (January 2026).
Case studies
Published ClearPoint customer stories, matched to this tool.
Local government · 60,000+ residents
After a long-serving mayor and CAO retired, departments did good work in separate silos, and the plan had no metric system tying their efforts to city goals.
The city partnered with the University of Memphis for public survey data, held work sessions with the aldermen and assigned every piece of the plan to one of its 11 departments, across five focus areas.
A new strategic plan in 13 months
Bartlett Vision 2030 launched with a public dashboard, weekly director meetings and quarterly strategic reviews run from ClearPoint.
Higher education · 20,000+ students
61 planning units submitted individual PDF reports, tactics lived in Excel, and administrators had to read every form by hand to judge progress on goals.
Since November 2020, each unit sets four annual goals in ClearPoint, with tactics, measures and targets. One of the four ties to the college-wide objective.
Updates in an hour instead of days
Dashboards compare units and planning cycles, and the central record makes accreditation reporting to the Higher Learning Commission easier to prepare.
Local government · from 35,000 to 70,000 residents in seven years
The 2018 five-year plan had goals and no objectives, and three years of spreadsheets made it hard to track while the city doubled in size.
The 2021 overhaul added objectives and KPIs under each goal and moved tracking into ClearPoint, so every department's initiatives link to a plan objective.
Every department feeding one plan
Initiatives update in real time, quarterly reports and a Briefing Book keep departments aligned, and teams share insights and resources across former silos.
Why plans stall
Most do not fail — they stop being measured, and nobody notices until the annual review. Across 21,000+ plans from 300+ organizations, 83% of metrics have no owner assigned, and of the 55,222 that do carry a name, 61.9% never received a written status update from that owner. The median plan has recorded 0% project completion; 76.1% of plans have never recorded a completed project.
Of 55,222 metrics with a named owner, 61.9% never heard from that owner once.
A template gives you headings to fill; a builder asks for the two things that decide whether the plan is alive in eighteen months — an owner and a measure on every objective — and counts what is missing while you type.
| Strategic plan template (Word / Excel) | This tool | |
|---|---|---|
| Goals and objectives | Blank headings | Picker of 56 objectives |
| Owner on each objective | Optional column | Counted; flagged when missing |
| Measure on each objective | Optional | Counted; flagged when missing |
| Coaching from platform data | None | Live |
| Export | Word / Excel download | CSV + one-page summary |
| Email required | To download | Only to export |
The median strategic project on the ClearPoint platform runs 9.2 months (n = 114,927 projects with start and end dates). Long enough to be forgotten, short enough to be measured — set a due date on every objective and review before it passes.
Customer stories on this page
City of Bartlett · Metropolitan Community College · City of St. Cloud
Yes. Build the whole plan in the browser without an account. Email is asked only when you export the document.
A CSV of your goals, objectives, measures and owners, and a printable one-page plan summary with your ownership and measurement counts.
From ClearPoint’s library of strategic objective examples, organized by Balanced Scorecard perspective.
Because that is where plans break: 83% of metrics on the ClearPoint platform have no owner assigned, and 61.9% of named owners never wrote a status update.
The median strategic project on the platform runs 9.2 months (n = 114,927). Plan for it to be measured before it ends.
ClearPoint platform data: 21,000+ strategic plans from 300+ organizations, January 2026 snapshot.
Method
21,000+ strategic plans from 300+ organizations on the ClearPoint platform; element-level figures from the January 2026 snapshot.
Ownership: 272,360 of 327,582 metrics with no owner. Owner activity: 55,222 owned metrics, written status updates only. Completion: n = 7,672 plans with projects; recorded completion is a floor. Duration: n = 114,927 projects.
The 56 objectives are examples grouped by Balanced Scorecard perspective — prompts, not recommendations. Recorded completion is not a failure rate.