Conventional wisdom about strategic (results-focused, fully-informed, multi-year) planning is that the optimal time to engage in this work is anytime but a crisis. But, the American Independence Museum, according to the Union Leader, appears to not have heard this wisdom. According to the story, the "board's short-term focus is threefold: to continue to stabilize and build a strong financial foundation for the museum; to hire a temporary administrator; and to hold the American Independence Festival".
Now I do believe these to be great goals but I also believe these to be too many really big goals for an organization that laid off all its staff and has just added five new board members doubling its size. Trying to do strategic planning while facing a bunch of really big challenges is, in my experience just too complicated and too much a diversion from what really needs to be done, especially for an un-staffed organization and for an organization that has now moved back into its infancy or maybe juvenile stage of development (noting that these stages require a board to give most of its attention to volunteering and operations/management) because if it doesn't, there will be no organization.
However there is one strategic question that is appropriate for the board to take up now, and it also is a survival questions. Is there a possible merger partner or at least a partner that can help offload some of the operational challenges the museum will likely face for the unforeseen future?