Posted On: June 25, 2025
Since its adoption in March 2023, the CAFNR Foundation’s Strategic Plan has served as a meaningful roadmap, helping trustees, staff and the University of Missouri’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR) leadership move forward with clarity and a shared purpose.
During the Foundation’s June 2025 Executive Committee meeting, trustees approved a recommendation to extend the plan by two years, moving the original 2025 completion date to the end of 2027. The extension will allow current efforts to continue making positive progress, while giving the Foundation the capacity to begin developing its next strategic plan in year five.
CAFNR Vice Chancellor and Dean Christopher Daubert supported the decision, having said, “It is not uncommon for strategic plans to be extended, especially when meaningful progress is underway.”
Back to the Beginning
The plan was originally born out of a period of reflection and rebuilding. Like many organizations, the Foundation slowed its activities during COVID-19. Most trustees were essential, full-time professionals balancing immediate demands in their fields. But by 2022, it was time to regroup and reimagine the Foundation’s future.
“After COVID-19, we (trustees) really felt like we needed to do more than just create a standard strategic plan,” said Strategic Plan Chair and 2nd Vice President Tracey Mershon. “We started off by looking at the mission, and we created a vision. Then our group also identified the values, and we conducted a survey with board members and emeritus trustees. The survey came back with enough material to help us build our SWOT analysis.”
That early work in 2022 was led by Ad-Hoc Committee members: Tracey Mershon, 2022 CAFNR Foundation President Gary Wheeler, trustees Mike Deering and Richard Fordyce, as well as CAFNR Foundation staff Mike Kateman and Michelle Niemeyer. With insights gathered from surveys, campus partners, the CAFNR Strategic Plan (Drive to Distinction) and alumni stakeholders, the committee crafted a blueprint centered on three strategic priorities, each with its own multi-year roadmap.
Strategic Priority 1: Strengthen Organizational Capacity
Current Committee: Tracey Mershon (Chair) | Chris Chinn | Garrett Hawkins
From redesigning the website to developing messaging and launching a monthly newsletter, the first set of goals under this priority focused on building the Foundation’s infrastructure and visibility. The Foundation also established a value proposition to clearly articulate why trustee participation matters, and held its first new member orientation under the strategic plan in March 2025.
As Mershon explained, these efforts helped paint a clearer picture of why a trustee’s time is valuable, especially since each trustee serves in a volunteer capacity.
“You’re not just coming here to sit around a table and talk,” Mershon said. “You have a real purpose and this helps you see the benefits of your involvement.”
This priority also helped justify critical hires, including a communications and development support role to help amplify the Foundation’s work. In future years, Strategic Priority 1 continues to build internal systems and lay the foundation for trustees to engage in meaningful ways.
Strategic Priority 2: Maximize Organizational Partnerships
Current Committee: Caleb Jones (Chair) | Scott Hays | Meagan Kaiser
With Strategic Priority 1’s main tools in place, the Priority 2 committee is focused on outreach, fostering deeper relationships across CAFNR and Missouri’s agriculture, food systems and natural resource sectors.
To support this work, the team is developing a recruitment matrix to guide future outreach and board development that will take place in the fall of 2025. The matrix is designed to guide the Foundation in intentionally building a board that reflects the full breadth of Missouri’s agriculture, food systems and natural resources sectors. This tool will help trustees identify individuals from a range of sectors, regions, experiences and backgrounds, ensuring the board increasingly reflects the diverse voices shaping Missouri’s agriculture, food systems and natural resources.
This strategic priority is rooted in a commitment to collaboration and community-building, asking trustees and partners, “Who else needs to know about the CAFNR Foundation, and how can we engage them?”
Strategic Priority 3: Create a Diversified Revenue Model
Current Committee: Ernie Verslues (Chair) | Jon Ihler | Anita Vanderwert
Strategic Priority 3 aims to build financial sustainability. As this phase progresses, the Foundation is focused on fundraising, cultivating donors and identifying long-term revenue opportunities to support the college and its mission.
“We’re finally reaching that stage where we can take the groundwork we’ve laid and begin actively building support,” Mershon said. “I’m just so thrilled that Ernie is leading that priority. Priority 3 is a major piece that we’ve been trying to work toward.”
A Plan That’s Growing
Each priority continues to move forward with its own set of yearly goals. Extending the plan gives the Foundation the space to deepen its work in each area and bring more partners into the fold.
“We were very ambitious in our timetable and recognized that we accomplished quite a bit in the first two years,” Mershon added. “But we also know there’s still major work ahead. So, we’ve adjusted some of the dates on our timeline and I’m confident we’ll accomplish everything we’ve set out to do.”
As momentum builds, Foundation trustees would like to remind Missourians that there’s room at the table for more people to get involved.
“If you’re interested in learning about the CAFNR Foundation, reach out to a trustee member and get on the website and look at all the great information and the stories on there,” Mershon said. “This isn’t an exclusive group. This is a group that really wants to bring together Missouri agriculture to benefit the state of Missouri and to benefit CAFNR. Everyone is welcome who really wants to participate at some level.”
Read the full CAFNR Foundation Strategic Plan to gather more insight.