Warrior Canine Connection

WCC Ten-Year Strategic Plan

Last Revised 17 April 2021

Warrior Canine Connection Strategic Plan 2017—2027


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INTRODUCTION

In 2011, Warrior Canine Connection (WCC) began operations as a pioneering organization utilizing a clinically-based service dog training program to help wounded Warriors reconnect with life, their families, their communities, and each other. The vision of WCC is to alleviate the symptoms of wounded Warriors with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI) through the therapeutic experience of training of service dogs for fellow Warriors. Services and products resulting from WCC operations include:

- Mission Based Trauma Recovery (MBTR) Program, PTSD and TBI therapy that fosters resiliency and focuses ambition on personal recovery while helping fellow Warriors in their own recovery.

- Certified Assistance dogs for Warriors (service, facility, “family support”, and therapy dogs)

- Enhanced Public awareness and education pertaining to novel methods to treat PTSD/TBI, therapeutic intervention through Mission Based Trauma Recovery and other forms of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT)

- Scholarly advancement, service dog advocacy, and public policy influence through research enabled by Warrior Canine Connection’s unique interface between clinical practice and career skills for Wounded Warriors, volunteers, and clinicians in training. WCC’s MBTR model enhances Warrior career-building skills, introduces dog training skills and PTSD/TBI awareness, and advances health care capabilities through skills-based clinical integration with other mainstream forms of therapy.

Two decades at war has resulted in more than half-a-million service members being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and TBI as reported by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Since our founding in 2011, WCC has trained and placed assistance dogs in support of wounded Warriors and provided the opportunity for more than 5,000 service members and Veterans to successfully improve their social, emotional and cognitive competencies directly from participating in WCC’s MBTR program. With the success we have seen through MBTR, WCC is committed to expanding our reach and increasing this impact. Strong support from leaders in the philanthropic community has positioned WCC to achieve this growth. However, replicating our past success requires


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that we strategically manage future organizational growth. WCC serves this worthy and deserving customer base with the help of visionaries from the private sector, government, and the philanthropic community. Using an innovative, collaborative systems approach, our unique team provides wounded Warriors multiple pathways and opportunities to achieve their potential and recover fully, realizing dreams and ambitions once robbed by injury or illness.


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STRATEGIC APPROACH

The WCC Organizational Framework was designed to attract, motivate, and retain committed stakeholders to produce a high performance team. The open, flexible, and adaptive system organizes operations and promotes collaborative efforts as a central theme (and expectation) to operational effectiveness. We recognize the opportunity to meet the growing market demands to support Warriors and maximize the contributions of our stakeholders.

- External influence is a key consideration to ensure WCC maintains perspective on market demands and changing practices.

- The WCC Management strategic plan creates a central vision of the organization.

o Change management is executed through a performance monitoring program with a feedback process, troubleshooting procedures, and corrective action protocols.

o The key performance indicator model enables productivity and growth management to confirm sustainability

- Vertical programs interact with each other to produce market deliverables.

- Primary outputs include MBTR therapy, assistance dogs, awareness, skills training and research advancement.


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SCALING STRATEGIES

Since the year 2000, CRS documents ~ 164K new cases of PTSD and ~ 307K TBI new cases in Warriors. As the number of PTSD and TBI cases increase, WCC plans to expand service locations and assistance dog placements to support the growing number of Warriors who can benefit from WCC’s programs and services. Evidence shows an increased recovery potential using WCC’s Mission Based Trauma Recovery method to maximize healing for Warriors, produce quality service dogs to meet Warrior demand, and provide career skills to Warriors and volunteers. To scale operations, the WCC management team’s strategic plan includes the operational framework supported by corporate governance, program manualization, and an organizational timeline.

Governance: The governance model used to support WCC’s core values stems from the American Evaluation Association’s guidelines for acceptable behavior in an innovative environment. The outer ring represents the five guiding principles as rules of engagement to promote professional internal and external interactions. Additionally, the guiding principles establish a collaborative team spirit surrounding the organizational vision of the organization’s future, relationships, and values. Another advantage of the governance model is to establish clear expectations on behaviors and actions to promote


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a safe, ethical, and innovative environment to measure against traditional practices.

Manualization: The strategic scaling plan to broaden WCC’s market offerings requires capturing the WCC key staff knowledge, processes, and experience through manualizing operational practices and foundational knowledge. Our ability to capture these important processes and knowledge will be essential to effectively replicating our program on a broader scale. Although Mission Based Trauma Recovery is a relatively new treatment practice, the WCC Management team and key staff have nearly 20 years of experience using this human-animal intervention therapy technique. The following manuals are the top priorities: Mission Based Trauma Recovery (MBTR) for PTSD/TBI, Service Dog Training Process and Requirements, Breeding/Placement/Client Relations, and Volunteer Support.

Organizational Timeline: WCC’s transformation from a startup to a mature, sustainable organization requires attention to three primary functions--governance, manualization of documents (which will provide the structure and administrative path forward), and a strong organizational timeline for growth. The strategic plan connects the past, current, and future plans together to communicate a unified vision, operational plan, and roadmap projections for the WCC leaders to guide successful and sustainable organizational growth. The progress, growth, and WCC’s future projections through 2027 follow. The dog program and Warrior services increases assume WCC is able to secure the additional capital funding to complete the headquarters facilities where construction started in 2016, steady staff increases to support the growing service sites, and that puppy whelping to assistance dog graduation is a two-year process.


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FINANCIAL NEED HEALING QUARTERS FACILITY PROGRAM Healing Quarters Facility Program Phase 1:

- Caretakers Residence and Office Space, Funded/Complete - Garage (Temporary Kennel), Funded/Complete - Welcome Center, Funded/Complete - Emergency Access Road Repairs, Funded/Complete Healing Quarters Facility Program Phase 2: - Large Barn Restoration/Conversion ($3.5 M) - Site Infrastructure ($1.5 M) - Puppy Enrichment Center ($400,000)

FINANCIAL NEED PER NEW WCC PROGRAM SITE Cost: $250K/site/year

- 2 Staff, 5 Dogs - DoD/VA/Community Facility Site Agreement

Value: 100 Unique Warriors/site/year at cost of $2,500/Warrior/year FINANCIAL NEED PER AFFILITATE PROGRAM SITE Cost: $25K/site/year

- .25 FTE Staff (Consultation and Training) - Affiliate Partner Program Site Agreement


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Limitations and Constraints: Achieving sustainable operations to maximize the benefits from WCC’s organizational efforts requires flexibility in structured operations to achieve consistently positive results. The collaborative actions of stakeholders and the governance model designed for WCC fosters an innovative and agile environment. Limitations can negatively influence WCC’s operations as barriers. What follows is a basic explanation of those barriers and the proactive planning that can reduce or eliminate negative influences.

- Financial: Target funding stability for operations, capital plan, and program growth with multi-year donation commitments. Provide assistance to Warriors unable to afford assistance dog costs.

o Operations and maintenance (staffing, facility, equipment, marketing, and supplies)

o Capital campaign (new HQ site) and program expansion (new sites) expenses

- Staffing: Capture innovative therapy and training approach to attract new staff and create training program with possible promotions to motivate and retain quality staff members.

o Process manualization and internal training program

- Market shifts: Track market demands and organizational productivity through performance metrics to streamline operational effectiveness and maximize client (and society) benefit.

o Utilize change management to adjust operations to maximize benefit using key performance indicators (KPI)

o Establish a collaborative culture with other service dog programs and quality breeding programs

- Lead-time: Planning, breeding, and whelping a litter of puppies can take up to a year.

o New property Puppy Enrichment Center (PEC) significantly increases number of puppy litters annually


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CHANGE MANAGEMENT

The growing population of injured Warriors, changing resources, and market shifts necessitate a flexible and agile operational approach to maximize the contributions of WCC’s investors. The systems framework considers outside influences such as personnel, funding, technology (resources), competitive organization practices, and market demands to manage operations and create innovative practices to streamline operations that align with current and future needs. The change management model incorporates the systems framework to monitor productivity and maintain external contextual awareness for WCC team members. Although many of WCC’s practices are

recognized as best industry practices, there is opportunity to improve operational effectiveness and gain efficiencies.

The continuous change management process has eight steps and requires stakeholder involvement and collaboration to enable WCC to evolve as an innovative, sustainable organization. The Performance Monitoring aspect of the change management program provides for performance tracking, Triple Loop trouble shooting (including actions, assumptions, and context), and corrective action implementation.


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INITIATIVES/KEY PERFORMANCE IDICATORS

The change management tool used at WCC fosters an innovative environment by incorporating a performance monitoring technique through KPIs aligned to the organization’s vision. The established KPIs enable the management team to monitor progress and track performance in key areas. The visible KPI metrics help stakeholders identify limitations, and the Triple Loop trouble shooting process provides a collaborative structure to support change management efforts. By implementing a Balance Scorecard approach, WCC is able to track progress directly related to the organizational vision while focusing on the financial, customer, company capability, and innovation and learning perspectives. Each area has stated objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives tracked through KPIs.

- Intervention

o Number of Warriors served, impact of MBTR, and number of sites

- Assistance Dogs o Number of assistance dogs and placement types

- Skills Training o Professional Development

- Awareness o Number of media stories, website hits, social media

followers, and puppy cam viewing hours - Research

o Number of publications and funds by source - Organizational

o Manualization of processes and balance of staff and volunteers


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SUMMARY

In the first 10 years of WCC’s existence, we have witnessed the healing power of the Human Animal Bond as well as the impact of leveraging the Warrior Ethos of Service Members helping Service Members. When Warriors with TBI and PTSD engage in the NO FAIL mission of training a service dog for a fellow Service Member they experience the healing power of Warrior Canine Connection’s Mission Based Trauma Recovery. The demand for this healing intervention as well as for the service dogs that are produced remains as high as ever. To meet this need, WCC must grow. In order to achieve this growth in a way that ensures consistency of high quality products, we have developed a strategy to support, monitor and manage our growth. We have created an operational framework that will help us to attract and retain a high performance team critical to achieving operational effectiveness. We have established operational timelines to guide our growth supported by a governance model that promotes a learning culture and innovation. We will create manuals of key processes to ensure consistent delivery of high quality products as we broaden our scale. We will monitor progress through tracking of key performance indicators aligned to the organizational vision. These KPIs along with a Balanced Scorecard approach will allow us to identify limitations and employ change management strategies, such as the triple loop process to implement thoughtful corrective actions when indicated. Executing this strategic plan enables WCC to continue collaborative efforts with donors, other organizations, staff, and Warriors to achieve sustainable growth and increase effectiveness in providing services to this deserving population. WCC’s strategic plan facilitates a compounding benefit growth to more than 8,000 Warriors between 2017 and 2027.


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2030 30

3040

50 60

70

100110 120

130

140150

160

6 11 24

3551

5968

78 93 110

125

145

165

185

210

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027

Dogs in Service# Dogs in Training # of placed Dogs


12

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027

2 37

10

19

27

3336

3942

4548

5052

5456

58

WCC Staffing

# of employees


13

23182005

3226

2212

34473637

2733

4400

5200

6000

6800

7600

8400

9200

213 328

851 705 722 575 545804

292 550 650 750 850 950 1050 1150

3 3 5 5 5 7 7 11 11 11 11 12 13 14 15 16 170

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

10000

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027

MBTR Services# of Hours of MBTR # of Unique Veterans # of Training Sites/Affiliate Programs

Documents

Warrior Canine Connection