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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17 resources found
- Search: 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 - 2.1C015
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 - 2.1C014
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 - 2.1C012
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 - 7.3C093
Building a Strategic Learning and Evaluation System for Your Organization
A guide from FSG on making evaluation systematic and tied to strategy across an organisation. It covers the parts of a strategic learning and evaluation system: an evaluation vision, a learning culture, clear strategy, coordinated activities and a supportive environment. It explains how to frame learning questions for 1 to 3 years and decide what to evaluate, when, and how to use findings. A webinar and slides accompany it.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree with sign-up - 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 - 2.1C019
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 - 2.3C026
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 - 4.3C050
Building Leaderful Organizations
Volume 6 of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Executive Transition Monograph Series, written for nonprofit executives and boards. It sets out 3 approaches to succession planning: strategic leader development, emergency succession planning and departure-defined succession planning. A section on the tough issues covers common sticking points, and a resource list closes the guide. Boards and executives use it as a framework to start succession planning and to spread leadership across staff.
Start hereClassicKey manual or guideFree - 9.1C117
Smart Chart 4.0
An online planning tool from Spitfire Strategies for foundations and nonprofits. It takes a team through 6 steps to build a communications plan tied to the organisation's goals, covering objectives, audiences, messages and tactics. It is used online at smartchart.org, and a PDF version can be downloaded. Teams use it in planning sessions to test whether each communications choice supports the change they want.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree with sign-up - 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 - 2.1C020
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 - 2.5C206
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 - 9.1C112
A Practical Guide to Integrated Communications
A workbook from Idealware that helps nonprofit staff plan communications across channels as one system. It has 18 worksheets in 4 sections: getting started with a self-assessment and an ideal channel mix, planning a campaign with schedules and a week-by-week calendar, planning ongoing maintenance content, and combining both into an integrated week and a longer-term plan. Teams can work through it from start to finish or use single worksheets.
ClassicTool or templateFree - 9.2C118
Stories Worth Telling
A guide from Georgetown's Center for Social Impact Communication and the Meyer Foundation, based on a review of storytelling at more than 150 social impact organisations. It covers 5 building blocks of a story: character, trajectory, authenticity, action-oriented emotions and a hook. It then walks through a story cycle of planning, production, distribution and evaluation, and ends on building a storytelling culture. Companion checklists and tools include a culture self-assessment and a story bank guide.
ClassicKey manual or guideFree with sign-up - 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 - 2.2C024
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
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