Resource library · free toolkits, templates and guides

The practical library for people who build nonprofits

211 really practical toolkits, templates and guides for nonprofit and NGO leaders, and the consultants and funders who support them. A mix of the classics and newer methods.

Suggestions are welcome

211 resources · 15 topics · 137 publishers · 197 free to use

Search and filter all 211 resources

5 resources found

  • Search: financial strategy
  • 15.3C195

    Developing a Financing Strategy

    A CIVICUS toolkit for civil society organisations that have not yet written a financing strategy. It explains why one is needed and what must be in place first: planning, budgeting, financial systems, public image and clear values. It then sets out the options: donor funding, earned income, member fees, public fundraising, investments and careful spending. It ends with ideas for writing the strategy document and putting it into practice.

    ClassicKey manual or guideFree
  • 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
  • 8.2C107

    StrongNonprofits Toolkit

    A free set of financial management tools for nonprofit finance staff and leaders. It is organised by topic: budgeting, navigating uncertainty, cash flow, operations, data and analysis, audit readiness, and governance and strategy. Downloads include a financial risk self-assessment, an equity in financial management self-assessment, a financial infrastructure self-assessment and a fiscal management activities calendar in Excel. Short videos from BDO explain equity in the finance function.

    ClassicTool or templateFree
  • 8.1C202

    Fundraising for Success

    A short guide from INTRAC's Common Ground Initiative for small and diaspora NGOs that have little time, staff or fundraising experience. It explains why fundraising needs a strategy, and how a small organisation can plan where its money will come from, who will raise it and how. It is part of a series of guides for small NGOs that includes one on governance.

    ClassicKey manual or guideFree
  • 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

Suggestion box

Know a resource we should add?

Know a practical resource we should add, or found a broken link or a mistake? Tell us.

A person reads every message. A title, a link or a few words is enough.

What is it about?
Why is it useful, or what needs fixing? A title or a link alone is fine too.