Resource library · free toolkits, templates and guides
The practical library for people who build nonprofits
227 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 welcome227 resources · 15 topics · 145 publishers · 210 free to use
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22 resources found
- Search: fund development
- 13.1C243
Funding Organisational Development: From Insight to Action
Funding Organisational Development: From Insight to Action is a practical guide for funders seeking to strengthen the resilience, effectiveness and long-term sustainability of the organisations they support. Developed by Philea's Organisational Development Community of Practice and informed by experienced practitioners, it explores how funders can move beyond one-off capacity-building interventions towards more holistic, trust-based approaches that centre partner agency, equity and context. The publication offers a practical ten-step framework for designing or renewing organisational development support, addressing challenges facing civil society today.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 8.1C235
Beyond Fundraising: What Does It Mean to Build a Culture of Philanthropy?
The Haas, Jr. Fund's widely used guide to building a culture of philanthropy. It defines one as an organisation where everyone, board, staff and executive director, plays a part in raising resources; where fundraising is built on relationships; and where development is valued and woven into everything the organisation does. It offers practical recommendations for sharing fundraising responsibility, aligning it with the mission and keeping donors engaged.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree - 4.1C043
A Guide to Building a Successful Leadership Development Program
A step-by-step guide for organisations that design or fund leadership development programmes. It draws on evaluations of the fellowship programmes run by Schusterman and the Rockwood Leadership Institute. It sets out 5 recommendations: make space for openness, develop emotional intelligence, build relationships on purpose, design a sound coaching approach and promote collaboration across sectors. It also includes a programme-building checklist, evaluation findings and further reading on equity in leadership development.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 6.2C241
Creative Disruption
Deborah Linnell and Tim Wolfred's study of what happens when nonprofit leaders take a funded sabbatical. It draws on surveys of 61 sabbatical awardees and 30 interim leaders from programmes run by six funders, including the Durfee Foundation, the Barr Foundation and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. It found that sabbaticals rejuvenate leaders, build second-tier leadership, strengthen boards, work as a dry run for succession and help leaders stay in their jobs longer. It ends with advice for funders on grants, selection, and support before and after the leave.
ClassicResearch and evidenceFree - 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 - 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 - 8.1C103
Fundraising Bright Spots
A research report from the Resetting Development project, which grew out of the UnderDeveloped study of nonprofit fundraising. It tells the stories of social change organisations that raise steady money from individual donors. It is for nonprofit leaders, boards and fundraising staff. Readers use the cases to rethink who owns fundraising in their organisation. A 2017 companion, Fundraising Bright Spots in Action, follows programme participants as they change their approach.
ClassicResearch and evidenceFree with sign-up - 7.2C091
A Developmental Evaluation Companion
A 70-page guide to developmental evaluation for people working on new or fast-changing initiatives and the funders who back them. After a foreword by Michael Quinn Patton, it has 3 sections: introducing developmental evaluation, grappling with its challenges, and designing one. It follows Gamble's earlier primer. Evaluators, innovators and funders use it to decide whether developmental evaluation fits and how to set one up.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 10.3C139
Transactions, Transformations, Translations
A report for funders and movement groups on how to measure movement building. It argues for metrics that capture both transactional and transformational change, with a matrix across 10 movement-building strategies. It looks beyond single organisations to whether groups can act together as a larger force, and asks that measures be co-created with the field. Recommendations cover new measures, capacity to use them, leadership development and movement-level metrics.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree - 13.1C167
Capacity Building 3.0: How to Strengthen the Social Ecosystem
A paper that proposes a new way to talk about capacity building, drawing on TCC Group's 35 years of designing and evaluating capacity-building work. It has 4 sections: core concepts and definitions of capacity and capacity building; who needs to build capacity; how the idea of capacity has changed, leading to an organisational actualisation framework; and newer methods used in effective capacity building. Funders and consultants use it to frame their approach.
ClassicResearch and evidenceFree - 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 - 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 - 1.2C002
A Guide to Organizational Capacity Assessment Tools
A memo for funders, consultants and nonprofits on choosing and using organisational capacity assessment tools. Informing Change reviewed 91 assessment tools, checklists and guides for the Hewlett Foundation. Sections cover methodology, what a good assessment experience looks like, cross-cutting lessons, how to select a tool and specific situations for using one. A companion spreadsheet database lists the tools. Its main finding is that the process around a tool matters as much as the tool.
ClassicKey online resourceFree - 4.1C041
Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Nonprofits
A guide for nonprofit leaders who are thinking about coaching. It draws on 3 years of data from the Coaching and Philanthropy Project, gathered from coached leaders, coaches, intermediaries and funders. Sections explain what coaching is, what it yields for leaders and organisations, common barriers and when to use it. A practical part covers readiness, finding and selecting a coach, running the engagement, paying for it and checking results. Case examples close the guide.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree - 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 - 3.1C228
Board Passages: Three Stages in a Nonprofit Board's Lifecycle
Karl Mathiasen's classic short paper on how boards change as an organisation grows. It describes three stages: the founding board, small and close to its leader or doing the work itself; the governing board, which shifts to policy, finances and sharing authority with staff; and the institutional board, larger and focused on major issues and fundraising. It closes with practical steps for moving between stages, such as term limits, regular self-assessment and a board development plan.
ClassicShort readFree - 10.2C136
Becoming locally led as an anti-racist practice
A guide from Bond, developed by The Social Investment Consultancy, for UK-based and other international NGOs that want to become locally led. It gives a baseline view of what locally led development looks like and tools to review how each department works, from HR and finance to programmes, communications and trustees. Staff at any level use it to start internal conversations, plan organisational change and discuss funding models with donors.
CurrentKey manual or guideFree - 14.2C189
Social Business Model Canvas
A method page from Elrha's Humanitarian Innovation Guide for innovation teams in humanitarian and development work. It explains the Social Business Model Canvas, Tandemic's version of the Business Model Canvas. The social version separates funders from users, splits the value created for each and adds a box for impact measures. A team session takes 2 to 3 hours, and the page advises reviewing the canvas over time.
CurrentTool or templateFree - 1.2C004
Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT)
A survey-based capacity assessment that a nonprofit's leaders complete to rate the organisation across a set of capacity areas, producing scores that show strengths and gaps. Social Venture Partners and other funders use it to open a conversation with grantees about where to invest in capacity. Social Venture Partners International hosts version 1 as a free Excel workbook.
ClassicTool or templateFree - 1.5C215
Growth of Youth-Serving Organizations
A free study by Bridgespan, commissioned by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, of 20 US youth-serving nonprofits that grew substantially. It looks at how they grew, what growth did to their finances, how their structures changed, including adding a chief operating officer, more formal systems and new board roles, and what helped or held them back. It comes as a white paper, executive summary and 20 case studies that leaders and funders use to plan for growth.
ClassicResearch and evidenceFree - 13.4C180
Time to Decolonise Aid: Insights and lessons from a global consultation
A report on how structural racism keeps power in the Global North across humanitarian, development and peacebuilding work. It presents findings from a 3-day online consultation in November 2020 with 158 activists, practitioners, academics, journalists and decision-makers, who left over 350 comments. It sets out recommendations for donors, INGOs and others. The report is available in 15 languages.
CurrentResearch and evidenceFree - 10.2C137
Localisation Performance Measurement Framework (LPMF)
A framework from NEAR, a network of local and national civil society organisations, for measuring progress on localisation in humanitarian and development work. Developed between 2017 and 2019, it turns broad commitments, mainly those of the Grand Bargain, into clear areas of change with indicators. Local NGOs, international partners and donors use it to check whether funding, partnerships and decision-making are shifting toward local actors.
CurrentTool or templateFree
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