Start here
Two paths through the library. Pick the one that fits, then work down the list. Every shelf also flags its first pick.
If you run a nonprofit
Twelve resources, in the order most organisations need them.
- Bridgespan Organizational Effectiveness Framework surveyFind out where you stand · Org360
- Strategic planning: a toolkit for small NGOsWrite a strategy people use · INTRAC
- Theory of Change Thinking in PracticeMap how change happens · Hivos
- Boards of Directors and Governance SystemsSet up your board · William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- Management in a Changing WorldManage your team · John Wiley & Sons
- Human Resources (HR) Toolkit for Small and Medium Nonprofit ActorsPut HR basics in place · CHS Alliance
- Full Cost ResourcesPrice your work at full cost · Nonprofit Finance Fund
- Change the Game AcademyRaise money locally · Wilde Ganzen Foundation
- Monitoring, evaluation and learningSet up monitoring and learning · INTRAC
- Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub (RSH)Get safeguarding right · Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub (RSH)
- Nonprofit AI Policy BuilderWrite an AI policy · Fast Forward
- Ten Nonprofit Funding ModelsChoose a funding model · The Bridgespan Group
If you fund nonprofits
Ten resources on funding organisations to get stronger.
- Strengthening Nonprofit Capacity: Core Concepts in Capacity BuildingUnderstand capacity building · Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)
- How to Build an Organisational Development PlanHelp grantees plan their development · The Bridgespan Group
- Open and Trusting Grant-making commitmentsCommit to open and trusting grantmaking · Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR)
- Trust-Based Philanthropy Self-Assessment ToolCheck how trust-based you are · Trust-Based Philanthropy Project
- Pay-What-It-Takes PhilanthropyPay what it takes · Stanford Social Innovation Review
- Breaking the Starvation CycleStop the starvation cycle · Humentum
- Longitudinal evaluation of BUILDRead the evidence from BUILD · NIRAS Sweden AB
- Sabbatical Programs for Nonprofit LeadersFund sabbaticals · Durfee Foundation
- Deciding Together: Shifting Power and Resources Through Participatory GrantmakingTry participatory grantmaking · GrantCraft; Foundation Center
- The Effective Exit: Managing the End of a Funding RelationshipExit responsibly · GrantCraft
The first pick on every shelf
Organisational assessment and development
- 1.1C001
The Barefoot Guide to Working with Organisations and Social Change
A do-it-yourself guide for leaders and facilitators who help organisations develop in healthier and more human ways. Written by a collective of development practitioners, it covers how to read an organisation, how to facilitate change, leadership, relationships, power and building a learning organisation. A library of downloadable exercises, readings, case studies and diagrams sits on the Barefoot website. Facilitators use it to plan OD processes and run sessions with teams.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 1.2C008
Bridgespan Organizational Effectiveness Framework survey
An online team survey on Org360 that runs a Bridgespan-based organisational assessment for nonprofits. It has 85 questions and takes about 34 minutes. Areas include strategic clarity, governance, financial sustainability, and diversity, equity and inclusion, with rating questions and open reflection questions. Leaders, board members and staff respond, and Org360 produces an automatic report with strengths, gaps and a development plan. It is free to use after sign-up.
Start hereEmergingTool or templateFree with sign-upNonprofit Builder tool - 1.3C010
How to Build an Organisational Development Plan
A toolkit for Indian NGOs and their funders that takes an organisation from diagnosis to an OD plan. The plan document walks users through 4 steps to find where the NGO falls short and plan improvements. A companion Organisational Development Assessment Guide covers 13 capabilities and helps teams choose a short list to work on first. Bridgespan built it with 5 Indian intermediaries as part of Pay-What-It-Takes India. It is licensed CC BY 4.0.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree - 1.4C011
Reinventing Organizations
A book on self-managing organisations based on 3 years of research. Part 1 traces how new organisational models have emerged over history. Part 2 is a practical handbook with case examples, such as the Dutch home care nonprofit Buurtzorg, on structures and daily practices. Part 3 looks at the conditions these organisations need, how to start one and how to change an existing one. Teams read it before trying flatter structures. An illustrated version also exists.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook - 1.5C214
Nonprofit Lifecycles
A short book that sets out seven stages a nonprofit can pass through: idea, start-up, growth, maturity, decline, turnaround and terminal. For each stage it describes what programmes, management, governance, resources and systems typically look like. Leaders, boards, funders and consultants use it to place an organisation on the curve, spot the area that lags behind the others and plan capacity work that fits the stage. Copies are sold through the Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute and partners such as SaskCulture.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook
Strategy and planning
- 2.1C017
Strategic planning: a toolkit for small NGOs
A short, step-by-step strategic planning toolkit for small NGOs, including those that fund partners and those that work directly with communities. It is one of 5 toolkits from INTRAC's Strengthening Small Organisations with Big Ambitions project (2021 to 2022), funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It comes as a PDF and as a lighter online version for low-bandwidth and mobile users. It is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree - 2.2C022
Theory of Change Thinking in Practice
Practical guidelines on theory of change for development organisations. Part A explains concepts, core components and the quality of practice, including power and gender. Part B sets out 8 steps, from clarifying the purpose of the process and describing the desired change to mapping pathways, setting monitoring and learning priorities, and using and adapting the theory. It also covers the theory of change as a product and a quality audit. Part C lists tools and facilitation resources.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 2.3C026
SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
A section of the Community Tool Box on running a SWOT analysis with a group. It explains what SWOT is, when to use it, the internal factors (strengths, weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities, threats), how to run the analysis with a diverse group of stakeholders and how to turn the results into goals and action plans. Community groups and nonprofits use it for strategic planning and to review new or existing initiatives.
Start hereClassicTool or templateFree - 2.4C027
Project DPro Guide
An introductory guide to managing projects in the development and humanitarian sector, also known as PMD Pro. It is written for new project managers, development professionals, students and consultants, and covers the project cycle from start to close. It is free to download in 15 languages. PM4NGOs also runs exams and certificates based on the guide, so teams use it both for daily project work and for professional certification.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree - 2.5C205
Three Questions for Nonprofits That Want to Solve Social Problems at Scale
A free Bridgespan article for nonprofit and NGO leaders who want impact at scale without building an ever larger organisation. Drawing on advisory work and interviews with 11 organisations, it poses three questions: what is the highest-impact role your organisation can play, what capabilities and structures that role needs, and how you will learn and adapt as conditions change. Teams use it to frame a scaling strategy before choosing tactics.
Start hereCurrentShort readFree
Governance and boards
- 3.1C028
Boards of Directors and Governance Systems
A practical guide to strengthening NGO boards, first written in Spanish for organisations in Latin America, where board development tools adapted to local culture and language were scarce. The English version followed requests from outside the region. It walks through board roles, structures and governance systems in practical steps, with tools that boards and executive directors can apply to their own organisation.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 3.2C036
Getting on Board free guides
A set of free practical guides for UK charities on trustee recruitment and board diversity. How to Diversify Your Board gives advice, case studies and templates for recruitment and onboarding. How to Recruit Trustees for Your Charity draws on 30 charities and includes skills audit and advert templates and an 8-step recruitment process. From Here to Diversity, from Action for Trustee Racial Diversity, covers recruiting Black and Asian trustees.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree - 3.3C037
A question of balance
A guide for charity chairs and chief executives on building a working relationship. Based on interviews with 22 chairs and chief executives, it weighs different approaches to the chair's part in day-to-day operations, who represents the charity in public, how close the two should be and how to balance challenge and support. It finds no single formula, so it asks both people to be self-aware, invest time and adjust when the relationship is not working.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 3.4C039
Good Governance: A Health Check
A board self-assessment tied to the Code of Good Governance (3rd edition) in Northern Ireland. It has 92 questions across 5 principles: understanding the board's role, working as a team, control and risk, integrity, and openness and accountability. Boards rate each item not met, part met or fully met, record evidence against suggested prompts and fill in an action table for each principle with actions, owners and dates.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree
Leadership and management
- 4.1C042
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership
A practical handbook on adaptive leadership for people leading change in organisations and communities. It builds on Heifetz's Leadership Without Easy Answers and Leadership on the Line. Using stories, diagrams, cases and worksheets, it helps readers tell technical problems from adaptive challenges, diagnose the system and themselves, and act when change meets resistance. Readers use the exercises alone or with a team to plan interventions and build their own leadership practice.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook - 4.2C047
Doing More with More: Putting Shared Leadership into Practice
An article on a 2-year learning community, from 2008 to 2010, in which leaders of 27 California civic participation nonprofits tried shared leadership. It reports results, such as 78 percent of participants growing their ability to develop staff as leaders. It names 4 preconditions: senior commitment, upfront planning time, sound basic management and clear accountability. It then describes 4 areas of change: leader mindsets and roles, structure, decision processes and culture.
Start hereClassicResearch and evidenceFree - 4.3C050
Building Leaderful Organizations
Volume 6 of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Executive Transition Monograph Series, written for nonprofit executives and boards. It sets out 3 approaches to succession planning: strategic leader development, emergency succession planning and departure-defined succession planning. A section on the tough issues covers common sticking points, and a resource list closes the guide. Boards and executives use it as a framework to start succession planning and to spread leadership across staff.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 4.4C058
Management in a Changing World
A management handbook from The Management Center for managers in nonprofits, education and social change groups. It follows Managing to Change the World and pairs the Center's established tools with new approaches and stories. Topics include building relationships, delegating, setting roles and goals, prioritising and deciding, developing staff, giving and receiving feedback, handling performance problems, managing up and sideways, and building a healthy team culture.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideBook
People and culture
- 5.1C064
Human Resources (HR) Toolkit for Small and Medium Nonprofit Actors
A 32-page toolkit for small and medium nonprofit, humanitarian and development organisations that want a formal system for managing people. It offers guidance, tips and checklists for writing or strengthening HR policies, plus a set of questions to review an existing HR framework, find gaps and set priority actions. It is written for HR staff, programme and operations teams, and finance and admin managers who handle basic HR.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree - 5.2C067
The Fearless Organization
A book by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson on psychological safety at work. It explains what psychological safety is, why it matters for learning and performance, and what happens when people stay silent. Using case studies from many sectors, it gives leaders a set of practices for setting the stage, inviting participation and responding well when people speak up, admit mistakes or raise concerns. Team leaders and managers use it to build candid teams.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook - 5.3C070
Awake to Woke to Work
A publication from Equity in the Center, developed with more than 120 DEI and race equity practitioners, on building a race equity culture inside an organisation. It sets out the Race Equity Cycle, a set of stages from awake to woke to work, and the organisational levers that move an organisation through them. It gives tactics and practices for shifting culture. Free companion tools include an action plan form, a glossary and a pulse check.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree with sign-up - 5.4C073
A Change Management & Deep Equity Primer
A primer by Sheryl Petty, co-released by GEO, on leading organisational change with equity at the core. It introduces Equity-Embedded Change Management and covers readiness, assessment, buy-in, consultant and client challenges, communication, implementation, getting unstuck, what progress means and leaders' inner work. It ends with a glossary, resources and a framework for deep equity capacity building. Staff, boards, consultants and funders use it to plan equity change.
Start hereCurrentShort readFree
Wellbeing and resilience
- 6.1C075
Employee Wellbeing Survey for Nonprofit Organizations
A 12-question staff survey template for nonprofit teams that takes about 5 minutes to complete. It covers retention, workload and boundaries, burnout risk, purpose, psychological safety, manager and team support, pay fairness and organisational care, plus 1 open question. Responses are anonymous. Leaders run it twice a year, or quarterly in periods of change, then pick 1 or 2 actions and report back to staff within 2 weeks.
Start hereEmergingTool or templateFree with sign-upNonprofit Builder tool - 6.2C076
Do-It-Yourself Sabbatical Guide for Nonprofits, with Sample Policies
A practical guide for nonprofit executive directors who want to plan a sabbatical without a funded programme. It sets out a timeline from 6 to 12 months before departure through the time away, the return to work and life after sabbatical. It also reproduces staff sabbatical policies from 6 organisations, including Peace Over Violence, CPAF, SAJE and GEO, which boards and HR leads can adapt.
Start hereClassicTool or templateFree - 6.3C079
Managing Stress in Humanitarian Workers
Guidelines that help humanitarian organisations build policies and systems for staff care. They set out key principles and standards for staff psychosocial wellbeing across the deployment cycle, and apply to both national and international staff. HR teams and managers use them to review their staff care system and plan improvements. Available in 5 languages.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 6.4C082
Resiliency Guide
A discussion and self-assessment guide that helps funders and nonprofits talk openly about the pressures nonprofits face and reflect on organisational strengths and weak spots. First developed in 2014, it has gone through several versions and draws on the 2020 study Resilience at Work. Grantmakers use it to decide where, when and how to invest in capacity building, and grantees use it with their funders.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree
Monitoring, evaluation and learning
- 7.1C084
Monitoring, evaluation and learning
A short toolkit that helps small NGOs set up monitoring, evaluation and learning they can run with few staff and little money. It is one of 5 toolkits from INTRAC's Strengthening Small Organisations with Big Ambitions project for small UK charities working internationally. It comes as a PDF and a lighter online version for slow connections and mobile use, under a Creative Commons licence.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree - 7.2C092
BetterEvaluation
A free knowledge platform and community on evaluation. Its Rainbow Framework groups monitoring and evaluation methods and processes into 7 tasks. The site has pages on evaluation methods, approaches and themes, a manager's guide to evaluation, a searchable resource library, and directories of training and academic programmes. Evaluators, commissioners and programme staff use it to choose and apply methods. It is part of the Global Evaluation Initiative.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree - 7.3C093
Building a Strategic Learning and Evaluation System for Your Organization
A guide from FSG on making evaluation systematic and tied to strategy across an organisation. It covers the parts of a strategic learning and evaluation system: an evaluation vision, a learning culture, clear strategy, coordinated activities and a supportive environment. It explains how to frame learning questions for 1 to 3 years and decide what to evaluate, when, and how to use findings. A webinar and slides accompany it.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree with sign-up - 7.4C096
Feedback Resources
A resource page from Feedback Labs that groups tools for listening to the people organisations serve into 3 stages. Getting started includes research, a feedback tools repository and funder listening guides. Establishing practice includes the Feedback Quiz, a crash course and Listen4Good's step-by-step guide to equity-centred feedback. Later resources include LabStorms, a fellowship and a conversation deck. Nonprofits and funders use it to build feedback loops.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree - 7.5C100
Building a Performance Measurement System
A short book from Root Cause that sets out a 5-step process for creating or improving a performance measurement system in a nonprofit. It covers choosing what to measure, building dashboards and involving managers, staff and board members in using the data. It also introduces performance measurement in general and the problems specific to nonprofits. Appendices include dashboard templates and a performance audit.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree
Fundraising and financial management
- 8.1C104
Fundraising for Social Change
A 496-page how-to handbook for small and mid-sized nonprofits that want to build a broad base of individual donors, written with racial, economic and climate justice groups in mind. It covers fundraising infrastructure, hiring a development director, working with consultants and coaches, budgeting and planning, and handling financial trouble. Spotlight sections carry reflections from working fundraisers. Teachers get a free instructor's manual and online extras.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideBook - 8.2C106
Financial Management for Humanitarian and Development Professionals Guide
A free guide to the basics of financial management for projects in development, humanitarian and conservation work. It is written for staff who are not finance specialists, such as project managers and programme leads. It links to an optional certification exam in English and Spanish. The guide is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 licence, so teams can adapt and reuse it for internal training.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 8.4C110
Full Cost Resources
A free collection of Nonprofit Finance Fund materials on the full cost of running a nonprofit. It contains the Full Cost Framework, 3 practices for getting started and building a full cost budget, a page on the 6 full cost areas, a short video series, and the Full Cost Communication Guide. The guide gives tips and sample scenarios for conversations between nonprofits and funders about grant terms.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree
Communications and advocacy
- 9.1C117
Smart Chart 4.0
An online planning tool from Spitfire Strategies for foundations and nonprofits. It takes a team through 6 steps to build a communications plan tied to the organisation's goals, covering objectives, audiences, messages and tactics. It is used online at smartchart.org, and a PDF version can be downloaded. Teams use it in planning sessions to test whether each communications choice supports the change they want.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree with sign-up - 9.2C119
Dóchas Guide to Ethical Communications
A guide from Dóchas, the Irish network of international development and humanitarian NGOs, for anyone who produces images and stories about the people NGOs work with. It updates the 2006 Dóchas Code of Conduct on Images and Messages. It sets out 3 core values and 4 commitments: authentic representation, contributor-led stories, informed consent, and doing no harm. Each commitment has practical steps, reality-check questions and a final checklist. Signatories follow 10 minimum requirements.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree - 9.3C123
Advocacy toolkit
A Tearfund Roots guide for community groups, churches and NGOs who want to speak up on issues that affect poor communities. It has 8 sections: what advocacy is, why it matters, the advocacy cycle, issue identification, research and analysis, planning, taking action, and monitoring and learning. Each section holds teaching notes in question-and-answer form, tools that work as handouts, and training exercises with facilitation instructions.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 9.4C128
The Advocacy Strategy Framework
A brief from the Center for Evaluation Innovation that presents a 1-page tool for setting out the theory of change behind a public policy advocacy strategy. It poses 6 questions for advocates and funders to answer. The framework helps define audiences and how they need to change, consider where other advocates stand, and choose tactics and interim outcomes. Teams use it as a starting point in place of linear box-and-arrow diagrams.
Start hereClassicTool or templateFree
Networks and partnerships
- 10.1C131
Net Gains
A handbook by Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor for people who build and run networks for social change. It covers how such networks form, grow and are managed, and it shares lessons on using networks to reach large-scale impact. Network coordinators, members and funders use it to plan a network's design, growth and coordination, and to compare their own experience with others.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 10.2C135
The Partnering Toolbook
A short guide by Ros Tennyson of The Partnering Initiative to the main elements of effective multi-stakeholder partnering. It walks through the partnering cycle, with tools and frameworks for scoping, building, managing and reviewing partnerships between NGOs, business, government and donors. Many organisations have adopted its tools. It is translated into 13 languages, and free PDFs are available in English and French.
Start hereClassicTool or templateFree - 10.3C140
Guide to Organizing from the Leading Change Network
A curated online guide from the Commons Social Change Library to the organising resources of the Leading Change Network. It gathers overviews, guides and manuals, tools and graphics, courses, training materials, videos and podcasts, and books. Skill sections cover one-on-ones, house meetings, team building, developing leadership, creating strategy and public narrative. Organisers and trainers use it as an entry point to the network's method and to resources in other languages.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree
Risk, safety and safeguarding
- 11.1C141
Holistic Security: A Strategy Manual for Human Rights Defenders
A strategy manual that helps human rights defenders plan for their security and well-being. It joins self-care, digital security and information security with traditional security management. The online version has 4 sections that form a cycle: Prepare, Explore, Strategise and Act. Chapters cover context and threat analysis, security plans, organisational security and protests. Exercises, further reading and a separate Trainers' Manual support group workshops.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 11.2C151
Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub (RSH)
A free online hub that helps humanitarian and development organisations, and smaller civil society organisations in particular, strengthen safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment. It lists over 1,300 resources, including tools, guidance, training material and how-to notes, plus 140 consultants. National hubs serve 12 countries in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. Content is in 18 languages and follows the CAPSEAH framework.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree - 11.3C153
Charities and risk management (CC26)
Guidance from the charity regulator for England and Wales on how trustees identify, assess and manage risks to their charity. It defines a risk as any event that could stop a charity achieving its aims or carrying out its strategies, with examples such as reputational damage, lost funding, poor investments and policy changes. Trustees use it to set up and review a risk register and to report on risk in their accounts.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree
Digital, data and AI
- 12.1C155
The Charity Digital Code of Practice 2025
A voluntary code of good practice that helps UK charities benchmark digital progress and make digital decisions. It sets out 8 principles: leadership, user led, culture, strategy, data, skills, risk and ethics, and adaptability. Separate editions exist for charities with income above and below £1 million. The 2025 update adds a data principle, AI guidance across all principles, tips on buying digital tools, and stronger cyber security and accessibility sections.
Start hereCurrentKey manual or guideFree - 12.2C157
Responsible Data Handbook
A handbook on the ethics and risks of collecting and using data about people in international development work. It follows the project lifecycle: designing a project, managing data, getting, understanding and sharing data, and closing a project. Chapters can be read alone or in sequence. A team of 12 practitioners wrote it in a 3-day book sprint. It is free under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 12.3C160
Nonprofit AI Policy Builder
A free online tool that helps a nonprofit draft its own AI policy covering governance, data privacy, risk management and ethics. Users share their mission and AI use, choose a light, standard or advanced policy, and answer tailored questions. The tool uses generative AI to draft the policy, which the team then edits and publishes. A draft takes about 20 minutes and needs no sign-up.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree - 12.4C166
Security in a Box: Digital Security Tools and Tactics
A free online toolkit on digital security for civil society groups at risk. It has 2 parts. Tactics guides explain basic practices such as strong passwords and protection from malicious software. Tool guides give step by step instructions to install, set up and use security software and services. A global network of activists, trainers and security experts helped build it. Users follow the guides to secure devices, accounts and communications.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree
Grantmaking and capacity-building funding
- 13.1C168
Strengthening Nonprofit Capacity: Core Concepts in Capacity Building
A primer for grantmakers on supporting grantee capacity. It defines nonprofit effectiveness, capacity and capacity building, and covers trust between funders and grantees, links to funder strategy, grantee and funder readiness, and 5 types of support from unrestricted grants to collective capacity building. It sets out 3 principles: contextual, continuous and collective. Each section ends with questions for grantmakers, and a final section covers measuring impact.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 13.2C174
Open and Trusting Grant-making commitments
A set of 8 commitments for UK funders who want to make grant-making more open and trusting. Funders commit to be clear, ask only what is needed, accept risk, decide quickly, share openly, give flexible funding, communicate purposefully and keep reporting proportionate. The commitments grew out of the COVID-19 response, and funders sign up publicly. Charities and funders use them to check grant practice.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree - 13.3C177
The Effective Exit: Managing the End of a Funding Relationship
A practical guide for grantmakers on ending a funding relationship well. 6 sections cover why exits are normal, communicating clearly with grantees, strengthening grantees' organisational capacity, helping them find new funding, getting the most from the final grant, and exits that are not routine. It includes exit strategies from 4 grantmakers and a sample Healthy Nonprofit Checklist from the New York Foundation.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 13.4C179
Deciding Together: Shifting Power and Resources Through Participatory Grantmaking
A guide to participatory grantmaking, where funders share funding decisions with the communities they serve. It explains why and how funders around the world do this, drawing on input from participatory grantmakers. It covers models, challenges, lessons learned and good practice for inclusive grantmaking. Funders use it to design a participatory process or to explain the approach to boards and staff.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree
Starting a nonprofit
- 14.1C184
Questions to ask before starting an organization
A one-page checklist from Pillar Nonprofit Network in London, Ontario, for people thinking of starting a nonprofit. It asks whether someone already does the work, which structure fits, whether the need is lasting, whether others will help, whether money can be found and whether founders will hand control to a board. It then outlines the steps for incorporation and charitable status in Canada and points to a longer Imagine Canada guide.
Start hereCurrentShort readFree - 14.2C188
Thinking Through the Business Model
A short worksheet from Nonprofit Finance Fund that helps a nonprofit team describe its business model. It has 6 prompts: mission, market (who receives services and who pays for them), programmes, expenses, revenue and outreach. Teams fill it in together, often before a budget or strategy session, to see how the parts connect and where money and mission pull apart.
Start hereClassicTool or templateFree
Social entrepreneurship and earned income
- 15.1C222
Social Entrepreneurship 101
A free 5-week online course from Acumen Academy for people new to social entrepreneurship. It covers 5 areas: what social entrepreneurship is, finding your problem and mission, theory of change and impact measurement, building a financially sustainable model, and scaling. It uses videos with founders such as Charles Best of DonorsChoose.org, reading and workshop guides and a case study. Acumen Academy also has a free course on business models for social enterprise.
Start hereCurrentKey online resourceFree - 15.2C191
Start Your Social Enterprise
A 28-page start-up guide for people setting up a social enterprise or trading venture. After an introduction to what social enterprise is, it has chapters on mission, market, money, social impact, people, sales and marketing, legal structure, the business plan and looking after yourself, ending with a summary. Founders work through it chapter by chapter as they shape their plan.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 15.3C197
Ten Nonprofit Funding Models
An article that sorts large nonprofits by how they raise money and names 10 funding models, from Heartfelt Connector and Member Motivator to Public Provider and Market Maker. For each model it describes the typical funders and organisations and the questions leaders should ask to test the fit. Leaders and boards use it to name their current model and discuss where to focus fundraising.
Start hereClassicKey online resourceFree
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