Topic 2 of 15 · Strategy and planning
Nonprofit strategic planning tools and templates
Free nonprofit strategic planning toolkits, strategic plan templates and theory of change guides for nonprofit and NGO leaders.
- 21 resources
- 21 free
- 6 tools and templates
- 5 sub-topics
A strategy is useful when your team can say it out loud and use it to say no. Most nonprofit strategies fail that test because they're 40 pages long and written for funders.
This shelf leans the other way. Short toolkits for small NGOs, one-page plans, theory of change guides that keep you honest about how change happens, and a few tools for checking the world around you before you commit. And when something works, the scaling section helps you decide how to spread it: grow, replicate, partner, or get others to adopt it.
You need this shelf if
- Your current plan lives in a drawer and nobody quotes it
- You keep adding programmes and can't decide what to stop
- A funder wants a theory of change and you're not sure where to begin
- You've got a new leader or a big shift in funding
- Your programme works and people keep asking you to do it elsewhere
Key questions for leaders
- Can every staff member say your strategy in a sentence or two? Agile Strategy Canvas →
- What will you stop doing so you can do more of what works?
- What's your theory of how change happens, and what has to be true for it to work? Theory of Change Thinking in Practice →
- Which trends or risks could knock your plan off course in the next 3 years? Scenario Planning for Nonprofits →
- How often will you review the plan, and who decides when it changes? The Strategy Habit →
- If your programme works, what's the best way to spread it: grow, replicate, partner or get others to adopt it? Three Questions for Nonprofits That Want to Solve Social Problems at Scale →
What's on the shelf
2.1 Strategic 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 - 2.1C012
One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP)
A one-page planning template from the Scaling Up Growth Tools set. It puts a team's core values, purpose, long-term goal, annual targets, quarterly priorities and actions on a single sheet, so everyone can see the plan and who owns each part. Leadership teams fill it in together and revisit it each quarter. It comes in a free download pack with other one-page tools such as the One-Page Personal Plan and the Rockefeller Habits Checklist.
ClassicTool or templateFree with sign-up - 2.1C014
Hiring a Strategic Planning Consultant
A short essay for nonprofit leaders about to engage a strategy consultant. It sets out 4 distinct purposes for strategy work, depending on whether the need comes from inside the organisation or from shifts outside it, and whether the audience for the strategy is internal or external. It then explains how to find, choose and work with a consultant who fits that purpose, including how to build skills in internal staff.
CurrentShort readFree - 2.1C015
How Nonprofits and NGOs Can Get Real Value from Strategic Planning
A set of free strategic planning resources for nonprofit and NGO leaders. The lead article sets out 4 elements common to most planning approaches. Its PDF also includes Strategic Planning at a Glance, a one-page overview of the process and its key questions, and Useful Tools for Nonprofit Strategic Planning, a glossary of common tools. A separate FAQ covers practical questions boards and teams ask when judging if they are ready to plan.
CurrentKey online resourceFree - 2.1C016
Scenario Planning for Nonprofits
A worksheet toolkit that helps nonprofit leaders plan under uncertainty. Teams first agree guiding principles, then work through 4 steps: identify key drivers of programmes, operations and funding at risk; build best, moderate and worst-case scenarios and model their effect on revenue; create a portfolio of actions with costs or savings; and set measurable trigger points that tell them when to act. Leadership teams fill it in together.
CurrentTool or templateFree - 2.1C018
Agile Strategy Canvas
A one-page canvas that holds an organisation's whole strategy in 3 layers. Strategic Direction covers vision, mission, core strategic insight, a big hairy audacious goal, economic drivers and values. Strategic Signals records internal insights and external opportunities and threats. Strategic Sprints lists an ideas backlog, active time-boxed sprints and completed sprints with what was learned. Teams update it every quarter as conditions change.
EmergingTool or templateFreeNonprofit Builder tool - 2.1C019
Agile Strategy
A guide to running strategy as a living system for nonprofits and social enterprises. It sets out 3 layers: Strategic Direction, which fixes long-term vision and values; Strategic Signals, which capture new insights and changes in the environment; and Strategic Sprints, focused projects of 2 to 3 months that move the strategy forward. Teams use it with the one-page Agile Strategy Canvas and review the strategy on a regular cycle.
EmergingKey manual or guideFreeNonprofit Builder tool - 2.1C020
The Strategy Habit
A playbook of 12 monthly exercises, called recipes, that make strategy a regular team habit. Each recipe poses a strategic question and gives a practical exercise for a team session, on topics such as setting a big hairy audacious goal, turning constraints into opportunities and business model change. The playbook gives guidance for running monthly discussions with a wide group of staff and building a strategy that keeps up with events.
EmergingTool or templateFreeNonprofit Builder tool
2.2 Theory of change and logic models
- 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 - 2.2C021
Logic Model Development Guide
A guide to building and using a programme logic model, written as a companion to the Kellogg Evaluation Handbook. Chapter 1 introduces logic models with samples. Chapter 2 gives exercises for building a simple model, with checklists and a template. Chapter 3 shows how to expand it into a theory of change. Chapter 4 uses logic modelling to shape an evaluation plan. Appendices hold resources and blank forms. Programme staff and evaluators use it to plan and evaluate work.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree - 2.2C023
Developing a Theory of Change
Guidance for funders and programme teams planning social change efforts. Part 1 explains theory of change concepts, benefits and limits. Part 2 gives step-by-step guidance, exercises and examples for writing an equitable theory of change. Part 3 provides fillable templates for components, assumptions and audiences. Part 4 shows example models. The guide stresses equity and community engagement, and it replaces a 2004 guide the foundation commissioned from ORS Impact.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 2.2C024
How to Develop Your Intended Impact and Theory of Change
A free toolkit that helps a nonprofit leadership team define its intended impact and theory of change. Intended impact names who the organisation serves, where and what outcomes it commits to over 5 to 10 years. Theory of change sets out how its approaches and partners get there. Each leader drafts both, the team merges the drafts, then pressure-tests the result with research and stakeholder conversations. It sits with an article using YW Boston as a case study.
CurrentTool or templateFree
2.3 Situational analysis
- 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 - 2.3C025
Power Analysis
A guide for development staff on why, when and how to do power analysis. It covers deciding to do an analysis, carrying it out, and a review of concepts and methods. Frameworks include political economy analysis, stakeholder influence mapping, Net-Map, power over, to, with and within, visible, hidden and invisible power, the Powercube, the Power Matrix, and closed, invited and claimed spaces. Teams use it when planning programmes and partnerships.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree
2.4 Action, operational and project planning
- 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
2.5 Scaling impact
- 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 - 2.5C204
Pathways to Social Impact
A 14-page working paper from Duke's Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, later revised for Stanford Social Innovation Review as "Scaling Social Impact". It asks what you are spreading (a programme, an organisation or a set of principles) and how: dissemination, loose to tight affiliation, or branching. Each option is tested against five R's: readiness, receptivity, resources, risk and return. Leaders and funders use its questions to pick a scaling path, including the option to wait.
ClassicShort readFree - 2.5C208
Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep
A free report prepared for the McConnell Foundation and Tamarack Institute, drawn from a decade of the foundation's Applied Dissemination grants and peer learning group. It sets out three ways to spread a social innovation: scaling out to more people and places, scaling up into policy and law, and scaling deep into culture, values and relationships. It shares lessons and strategies from grantees, plus what made the peer learning process work. Teams use it to plan beyond simple replication.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree - 2.5C206
A New Look at Strategic Pathways for Solving Social Problems at Scale
The research companion to Bridgespan's "Three Questions" article. The team reviewed the strategies of about 80 organisations in the US, Asia and Africa and interviewed leaders of 11, then grouped what they found into eight main pathways to impact at scale, from expanding direct services to shifting policy and practice. Leaders and funders use it to see which routes exist and which fit their model. It updates Bridgespan's 2014 work with new cases.
CurrentResearch and evidenceFree with sign-up - 2.5C207
Big Enough. Simple Enough. Cheap Enough.
A short article by Kevin Starr of the Mulago Foundation on how to judge whether a solution can scale. Real scale usually depends on a "doer" and a "payer" other than the founding organisation, often government. Starr tests each model three ways: is the market big enough, is it simple enough for the doer to deliver, and is it cheap enough for the payer, benchmarked against what payers already spend. Founders use it to redesign models before scaling.
CurrentShort readFree - 2.5C209
Scaling Pathways: Pivoting to Impact
The opening report in the free Scaling Pathways series. It follows three organisations, Imazon, Evidence Action and VisionSpring, through their scaling journeys: the unit they scaled, the pathways they chose and how they changed course. It then names five common roadblocks, such as scaling without the right people and systems or without metrics and trip wires, with advice for leaders and funders. Teams use it to prepare for scale and expect pivots.
CurrentCase study or exampleFree
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