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NVMS Strategic Plan
About This Document: In 2026, the NVMS Board of Directors and Leadership worked diligently to develop a plan to lead this organization successfully into the future. This document outlines three strategic priorities for NVMS, each with defined goals and concrete action steps. Goals and actions are grounded in findings from the Board Governance Survey, the Board Strategic Survey, the Faculty & Staff Survey, and the Board Strategic Planning Sessions. If you have any questions, please reach out to our Executive Director or Board President.
Mission: North Valley Music School enriches our Montana communities through music education, appreciation, and performance by offering musical opportunities for all.
Vision: NVMS is a leader in music education and excellence, providing high-quality music instruction and seeking innovative ways to make music education a part of everyday lives with the belief that everyone has the potential to experience, enjoy, create, and develop a lasting love of music.
Strategic Priority: Access & Excellence
Expand NVMS’s reach so that exceptional music education is available to every member of our community — growing with intention, not just opportunity, and holding students and teachers alike to a standard of excellence that is clear, supported, and continuously growing.
Goal 1 - Define and Support a Culture of Teaching Excellence
Action Steps
• Develop a teaching quality framework
• Establish student progress benchmarks
• Create a formal program for professional development
Goal 2 - Strengthen Scholarship and Financial Assistance Infrastructure
Action Steps:
• Audit the current scholarship program
• Set a specific annual scholarship funding target
• Make scholarship availability more visible
Goal 3 - Establish a Systematic Process for Assessing and Adding Programs
Action Steps:
• Develop a one-page program proposal template
• Conduct a community needs survey
• Establish a program review calendar
Goal 4 - Activate the New Building as a Community Hub
Action Steps:
• Develop an annual calendar of community-facing events at the building
• Develop a facility rental or partnership policy
• Measure building utilization annually
Goal 5 - Define and Execute a Strategic Community Outreach Plan
Action Steps:
• Facilitate a board and staff conversation
• Identify 1–2 specific outreach pilots
• Explore whether outreach programming can generate supplemental income
Goal 6 - Pursue Intentional, Mission-Aligned Enrollment Growth
Action Steps:
• Establish a board-adopted enrollment goal
• Build a simple enrollment tracking dashboard
• Review and understand the current waitlist
Strategic Priority: People, Culture, & Community
Cultivate a thriving, connected community of faculty, staff, board, students, families, and neighbors — where belonging, voice, and excellence are experienced by everyone inside and outside the school.
Goal 1 - Build a Culture of Belonging Across Faculty and Board
Action Steps:
• Create cross-studio collaboration opportunities
• Create all-faculty gatherings that are not meetings
• Designate a board liaison to faculty
Goal 2 - Create Formal Feedback Channels for Faculty and Families
Action Steps:
• Launch a brief annual faculty operations survey
• Continue and formalize the family feedback mechanism
• Create a clear process for how faculty and family input flows into decision-making
Goal 3 - Establish Mutual Goal-Setting and Faculty Voice Mechanisms
Action Steps:
• Reintroduce annual teacher self-assessments
• Introduce a shared goal-setting process
• Report back to faculty annually on school-wide themes from goal-setting conversations
Goal 4 - Expand Access to Professional Development
Action Steps:
• Ensure faculty understand the available opportunities
• Build a structured individual growth plan process
• Invite at least one external clinician or method specialist per year
Goal 5 - Conduct a Compensation Review and Create a Transparent Pay Structure
Action Steps:
• Conduct a compensation benchmarking study
• Develop and publish a written compensation framework
• Present findings and the proposed pay structure
Goal 6 - Establish a Clear and Intentional Internal Communication Flow
Action Steps:
• Conduct internal communication needs assessment
• Identify current gaps
• Make changes to internal communication flow document
Goal 7 - Strengthen Marketing and Community Communication
Action Steps:
• Develop a simple annual communications calendar (internal)
• Create a library of student and faculty stories (internal)
• Standardize family communication practices (external)
Goal 8 - Celebrate and Communicate NVMS’s Community Impact
Action Steps:
• Consider a redesign of the spring program
• Identify community partners
• Find meaningful ways to have students as ambassadors out in the community.
Strategic Priority: Stewardship, Structure, & Sustainability
Build the governance structures, financial discipline, and organizational accountability that make everything else possible — ensuring NVMS is led with clarity, transparency, and long-term vision so that financial health always serves the mission.
Goal 1 - Build a Self-Sustaining Financial Basis for Long-Term Viability
Action Steps:
• Establish a board-adopted reserve policy
• Conduct an annual review of NVMS’s revenue composition
• Develop a multi-year financial forecast
Goal 2 - Align Budget and Resource Allocation with Strategic Priorities
Action Steps:
• Adopt a budget process in which each line item is explicitly connected to a strategic priority
• Request the finance committee to add strategic plan comparison to its regular review
• Clarify and document the board and ED financial authority thresholds.
Goal 3 - Explicitly Link Financial Health to Access and Faculty Excellence
Action Steps:
• Ensure the annual budget presentation to the board explicitly shows how revenue supports scholarship funding, faculty compensation, and professional development
• Include a mission impact statement
Goal 4 - Establish a Formal ED Evaluation Process
Action Steps:
• Form a small committee to review the existing ED evaluation tool
• Draft and adopt an ED evaluation tool
Goal 5 - Implement Board Self-Assessment and Board Review
Action Steps:
• Review the board self-assessment tool
• Introduce a lightweight annual peer review process
• Review self-assessment results
Goal 6 - Clarify Board and ED Roles and Decision-Making Authority
Action Steps:
• Facilitate a board working session to map current decision-making practices
• Draft a one-page decision-making matrix
• Review and update board bylaws
Goal 7 - Build Board Financial Literacy
Action Steps:
• Create a simple monthly financial dashboard
• Schedule a financial literacy orientation for all board members
• Add financial literacy as a standing component of new board member onboarding
Goal 8 - Cultivate a Culture of Accountable Relationships
Action Steps:
• Maintain the consent agenda and strict time limits for board meetings
• Establish committee charters
• Name and celebrate examples of accountability