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 welcome211 resources · 15 topics · 137 publishers · 197 free to use
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15 resources found
- Search: social innovation
- 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 - 15.1C221
Lean Impact
Ann Mei Chang, former chief innovation officer at USAID and Mercy Corps, adapts lean startup methods to the social sector. The book shows how to test value, growth and impact with small experiments, how to find a model that can reach many more people, and how funders can back this kind of learning. It's full of examples from nonprofits, social enterprises and aid agencies.
ClassicKey manual or guideBook - 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 - 15.1C220
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries's book on building new ventures through fast, cheap experiments. It's organised in 3 parts: vision, steer and accelerate. Readers learn to name their riskiest assumptions, test them with a minimum viable product, measure progress through validated learning and decide whether to pivot or persevere. Social entrepreneurs and nonprofit teams use it to test new programmes and earned income ideas before scaling them.
ClassicKey manual or guideBook - 15.1C224
Systems Change Crash Course
A free, self-paced course from Ashoka Changemakers and Ashoka Globalizer. Through short videos and worksheets it walks you through how to spot the system behind a social problem and design a strategy to shift it. It draws on Ashoka's decades of work with social entrepreneurs who tackle root causes. Founders and teams use it to plan how their work can change policies, markets or norms.
CurrentKey online resourceFree - 4.3C053
Making Founder Successions Work
An article from the Spring 2018 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, republished by Bridgespan. It questions the common advice that a founder should make a clean break when stepping down. The authors argue that many nonprofits gain when they plan a deliberate, bounded ongoing role for the departing founder. Boards, founders and successors use it to discuss what role the founder should keep and how to set its limits.
ClassicShort readFree - 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 - 9.1C114
The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector
An article from the Spring 2012 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review for nonprofit leaders, communicators and funders. The authors observe that many nonprofits still use their brand mainly for fundraising. They describe a shift toward using brand to pursue long-term social goals and to build internal identity, cohesion and capacity. They set out the brand IDEA framework: brand integrity, brand democracy, brand ethics and brand affinity. Readers use it to rethink the job of a brand.
ClassicShort readFree with sign-up - 10.1C129
The State of Network Evaluation
A framing paper for funders, network leaders and evaluators who want to assess networks for social change. It explains why networks matter, what makes them distinct, which parts of a network can be evaluated, and which designs, questions and methods fit. It closes on challenges for the field. A companion casebook from Network Impact, Evaluating Networks for Social Change, describes real funder-led network evaluations and their results.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree - 10.1C132
Centering Equity in Collective Impact
An article from the Winter 2022 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review in which the authors of the collective impact approach revisit it with equity at the centre. It sets out 5 strategies: use local data and context to aim solutions, pursue systems change alongside programmes, share power within the collaborative, listen to and act with the community, and build equity-focused leadership and accountability. Coalitions and funders use it to review their own collective impact work.
CurrentShort readFree 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 - 6.2C078
Trust, Rest, and Joy
A short article from the Spring 2024 issue of SSIR, in a supplement sponsored by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project. Leaders from the Durfee and Satterberg foundations describe how they fund rest: Durfee's sabbaticals since 1997 and its Lark Awards for staff wellbeing, and Satterberg's support for a BIPOC executive director sabbatical and retreat programme. It discusses who gets to rest and why funders need to trust grantees on what restores them.
CurrentShort readFree with sign-up - 13.2C171
Pay-What-It-Takes Philanthropy
An article that argues funders should pay the real costs of the work they fund, in place of the common 15 percent cap on overhead. The Bridgespan authors show that indirect costs at 20 high-performing nonprofits ranged from 21 to 89 percent of direct costs, with a median of 40 percent. They describe the starvation cycle, show how cost structures differ by type of nonprofit, and propose reimbursing costs by segment.
ClassicShort readFree with sign-up - 10.1C133
Impact Networks
A 216-page book by David Ehrlichman for people who start, lead or fund networks of organisations working on complex problems. It covers how to build connection and trust among members, coordinate action, share governance and support self-organisation. The linked page is an excerpt on self-organisation published by Stanford Social Innovation Review. Network leaders use the book as a practical reference for running a network.
CurrentKey manual or guideBook
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