This workshop will cover the how to’s of business planning, along with the benefits, and examples of successful business plans for small and medium nonprofits. Presenters will share how their organizations use business planning to attract and retain competent staff, attract diverse funding sources, and deliver needed services to their communities.

1. Business Planning for Successful
Nonprofit
2012 National Rural Housing
Conference
“The chance for the
success of a plan is directly
proportional to its
simplicity.”

2. Strategic Plan vs. Business Plan
Strategic Planning is typically internal. Business Planning is normally for external
consumption.
Generally, a Strategic Plan is:
• broader
• provides general direction
• is developed for a timeframe of 2 to 5 years
A Business Plan is:
• operational and tactical
• has a shorter timeframe, usually one year
• It shows you how things will be done
While many use the two interchangeably, don’t get hung up on whether you are
doing one or the other (and hybrids are ok!) Focus on where you are at in the life
cycle of your organization. Where do you want to go? Make sure to reflect on
where you have been before heading somewhere new.

3. The Basics of the Strategic Plan
– Strategic clarity: Develop a concrete description of the
impact for which the organization will hold itself
accountable over some specified period of time (its
intended impact) and the cause-and-effect logic explaining
how its work will lead to that impact (its theory of change).
– Strategic priorities: Determine what specific actions and
activities must take place to achieve the intended impact.
– Resource implications: Understand the resources—
financial, human, and organizational—needed to pursue
these priorities and mapping out a plan to secure them.
– Performance measures: Establish the quantitative and
qualitative milestones.

4. Facilitating the Process
Selecting a facilitator:
• Where are you at in the life cycle of your
organization?
• Where is your board at and what is the
relationship between the chief executive and
the board?

5. Moving it Forward
• Select a steering committee of board and staff
• Establish a timeframe and stick to it
• Plan an offsite retreat with board and staff
• Decipher from the retreat the type of plan to
be prepared
• Assign portions of the plan to staff
• Draft plan to steering committee, finalized and
sent to board for approval

6. Implementation
• Go public with the plan
• Track progress/utilize dashboard
• Board reviews annually
• Tie Plan into employee performance reviews
• Seek constant feedback from stakeholders on
how you are doing
• Update the plan as needed

7. Nothing goes as planned
• Recognize early on what isn’t working (and
likely never will) and make adjustments.
• Always be nimble; have some substitute ideas
in your back pocket that you can bring up for
consideration if you need
• Surprises happen, just make sure your board
chair is informed extemporaneou

8. Resources
• The Nonprofit Business Plan: A Leader's Guide to
Creating a Successful Business Model
by David La Piana, Heather Gowdy, Lester Olmstead-
Rose, and Brent Copen Turner Publishing (2012)
• Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions
for Financial Viability
by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman
Jossey-Bass (2010)
• Business Planning for Nonprofits: What It Is and Why
It Matters (Bridgespan)
• Elements of a business plan for nonprofit
organizations (About.com)