Strategy Must Govern What You Stop

Leaders usually present strategy through beginnings: a new priority, programme, structure, office, partnership or technology. The launch attracts energy because it expresses hope. Yet every serious strategy also makes a claim upon finite attention, money, people and institutional trust. If nothing stops, the strategy is probably an additional wish list rather than a choice.

The moral difficulty lies in the transition. An activity that no longer fits the strategy may still employ people, serve a vulnerable group, hold important records, carry contractual obligations or express a history that communities value. Ending it carelessly can transfer the cost of organisational adaptation to those with the least power to absorb it.

Values-based leadership must therefore govern subtraction as carefully as expansion. It should name what will continue, change, merge, transfer or end; explain why; protect legitimate commitments; create continuity where essential; and return evidence about the human and institutional consequences to the authority that approved the strategy.

On 22 October 2026, the Ford Foundation announced its first strategic refresh in more than a decade. It said future work would centre on seven areas connected to democratic governance, inclusive economies, information, safety and justice, gender equality, global cooperation and racial justice. Implementation is expected to begin on a rolling basis during 2027. Ford Foundation announcement

The foundation also announced larger multiyear grants, more general operating support, an office…