The Thomas Jefferson Foundation engaged in strategic planning in 2012 and 2017. Many of the unrealized goals of those plans continue to animate Climb the Mountain.
In December 2023, shortly before Jane Kamensky began her tenure as President and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, she met with several dozen senior staff to discuss their hopes and concerns about elements of their work they wanted to preserve and grow, and others they wanted to shift or stop. In March 2024, the leadership team took that preliminary discussion to the next level through a facilitated retreat of about seventy staff from across the organization. As we articulated priorities and the capabilities and foci needed to achieve them, it became clear that a broader, more sustained planning process was essential to the Foundation’s next generation of work.
Over that summer, a core working group of leadership team members comprised of Kamensky, Chief of Staff Tasha Stanton, Chief Financial Officer Christine Barth, and the new Vice President for External Relations Laura Nichols mapped the process which has resulted in this plan. (Alexandra Carter, Chief Development Officer, joined the core working group upon her appointment in January 2025.) We recruited Michael Lenox, the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at UVA’s Darden School and an expert in organizational strategy, to facilitate two retreats that would serve as milestones in the process. We recruited a group of staff from all levels of the Foundation who agreed to contribute their acumen to the work.
In September 2024, the Foundation convened a strategic vision retreat attended by more than thirty staff, members of the Board of Trustees, advisory committee members, and philanthropic leaders. The goal of the retreat was to lay the groundwork for a new strategic plan to guide us toward and past the generational opportunity of 2026 by focusing our education and preservation missions and thinking deeply about the intersection between them. In this session, we discussed the Foundation’s mission, identified stakeholders, conducted an analysis of our opportunities, challenges, and capabilities, and brainstormed a dynamic and differentiated vision for Monticello.
In the months following the retreat, Kamensky drafted statements of organizational values and vision, synthesizing feedback from the planning group, the Board of Trustees, and external advisors.
The broader planning group reassembled in January 2025, when Professor Lenox facilitated a second retreat, centered on strategic actions. Foundation trustees, staff, and advisors generated hundreds of ideas, which the group funneled into a small group of overarching goals and domains of action. The core staff working group and full Monticello leadership team then collaborated on refining several drafts of Climb the Mountain. Beginning in spring 2025, we shared this plan with the staff working group, external advisors, and facilitated focus groups before presenting the results to the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
This is a living document that will evolve based on testing, feedback, and feasibility. As we move forward to evaluate elements of the plan, we will continue to refine ideas and priorities.