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.

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

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7 resources found

  • Search: risk planning
  • 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
  • 11.1C145

    Security to go: a risk management toolkit for humanitarian aid agencies

    A toolkit for staff who are not security specialists and need to set up basic safety and security systems in a new context or a sudden emergency. Modules are grouped into planning and preparedness, response, and support services. Topics include actor mapping, risk assessment, digital security, security plans, facility security, communications, travel safety, medical evacuation and private security providers. It contains a risk rating matrix, a security plan template, sample SOPs, checklists and a glossary.

    CurrentTool or templateFree
  • 6.4C203

    Toolkit for Building Organizational Resilience

    A free toolkit from the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits, designed with the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. It helps a nonprofit team develop or update a crisis management plan, sharpen crisis communications, write a business continuity plan that keeps essential work running during disruption, and review disaster recovery plans. You request a copy with your name, email and organisation.

    CurrentTool or templateFree with sign-up
  • 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
  • 11.2C146

    Developing child safeguarding policy and procedures

    A facilitator's guide for workshops that help organisations write or strengthen a child safeguarding policy and procedures. 4 sessions cover risk and mitigation, drafting or strengthening a policy, implementation, and roles and responsibilities. Exercises include a risk assessment, a SWOT analysis, a self-assessment against the Keeping Children Safe Standards, designing a reporting procedure and mapping local resources. An appendix gives notes on planning and running a learning event.

    CurrentTool or templateFree
  • 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
  • 11.2C150

    Safeguarding & participatory grant-making: An essential guide for funders

    A guide for funders on building safeguarding into participatory grant-making. It walks through planning, delivery and review, with the aim of protecting the community members who make funding decisions from harm. It includes a handout, Questions for decision makers to funders, which decision makers can use to ask whether a funder has planned for their safety. Foundation staff use it when designing or reviewing a participatory process.

    CurrentKey manual or guideFree

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