Nonprofit Strategic Planning: The Ultimate Guide + Examples

The recent and unprecedented events caused by the COVID-19 pandemic caused nonprofits everywhere to rethink their plan for the year 2020 and even 2021. Determining how to shift strategies in these challenging circumstances is difficult for any organization. Still, nonprofits skilled at strategic planning are better equipped to handle any surprises, both good and bad, that could be thrown at them at any time.

Yes, it’s impossible to plan perfectly for unexpected events, but ensuring your annual strategic planning is more than a formality is the best place to start. Start with a template and various examples to craft a plan that allows you to react to the unexpected and grow and develop your organization. 

Whether you’re crafting an emergency plan to react to unexpected external circumstances or if you’re simply creating your strategy for the coming year, this guide will help your nonprofit get the most out of your strategic plan. With all of the different models and elements involved in your plan’s creation, you’ll need to consider which formats best meet your nonprofit’s needs.

1. What is a strategic plan for nonprofits?
2. Consider the best strategic plan model for your nonprofit.
3. Define the elements of your nonprofit strategic plan.
4. Use these 5 steps to build your strategic development plan.
5. Analyze nonprofit strategic plan templates and examples.

While we all hope that the pandemic’s tragic events will end soon and never occur again, it’s always best to be prepared! Plus, annual strategic planning for nonprofits is the key to unlock your growth potential for the future. Let’s get started to learn more about making the most of this plan.

1. What is a strategic plan for nonprofits?

Nonprofit strategic planning is the process of identifying elements of a blueprint that will help organizations accomplish their goals. It requires your organization to create goals and objectives and make decisions about how you’ll reach them.

Creating your strategic plan isn’t a linear process; it’s more similar to a flow chart because each element is connected to another and leads to a unique outcome. 

For example, your organization can increase email outreach after you’ve finalized your website and started collecting email addresses through lead capture forms. You can only expand your programming after you’ve improved your fundraising. And, you can only enhance your fundraising by stewarding donors and developing relationships with marketing tools.

Everything is connected. A good strategic plan considers this and ensures you have the pathways figured out to meet (and hopefully exceed) your goals for any aspect of your organization. 

2. Consider the best strategic plan model for your nonprofit.

Understandably, different circumstances and goals will require a unique type of nonprofit strategic plan. In the nonprofit world, there are several planning models that you can use to reach your specific needs and goals. Choose a strategic planning model based on the circumstances and outcomes that are occurring at your organization.

For instance, if you’re in a troublesome economy due to a pandemic, you might choose one type of strategic plan. But if everything is stable in the world and you’d like to focus more heavily on your growth, you might choose a different one.

Carefully examine the following strategic model plans to decide which one will best suit the needs and ambitions of your organization:

Standard Strategic Planning Model

The standard strategic planning model, also known as the basic planning model, vision-based model, goals-based model, and the conventional model, is the most common nonprofit strategic planning model.

It’s best to use this nonprofit strategic plan model when your organization’s external surroundings are generally calm. When you start using this model, the economy is probably stable, your community and country are at peace, and your organization is well-established in the community.

Amid a global pandemic while you’re quarantining at home (*cough* COVID-19 *cough*) may not be the most suitable time to implement this strategy. Any disruptions in the environment surrounding your nonprofit could prove to be incredibly detrimental to this strategic planning model.

Generally, this model follows these steps: 

• Define your organization’s overall mission and goals.
• Set specific, short-term goals you would like to reach to get you closer to that mission.
• Create a clear plan to reach those short-term goals, including who is responsible for each goal’s success.
• Write these actions down and create a schedule to complete each one.

Here’s an example of what this would look like: Let’s say your organization has an animal shelter. In the next year, your specific short-term goal is to increase the shelter’s capacity by 50 animals and invest in the materials to do so.

To do this, your organization will need to increase fundraising revenue by $10,000 by finding new outreach opportunities and developing relationships with existing supporters to increase donor retention.

You may decide to ask one team member to post to social media every day to engage your online audience. Meanwhile, you may assign another person to call new donors to thank them and increase your new donor retention.

This model is the most common because the climate in which your organization resides is, more often than not, fairly stable. When it does become unstable, that means it’s time to switch to a different model.

Issues-Based Strategic Planning Model

An issues-based strategic planning model can be used when your organization’s internal operations are in more turbulent conditions. For example, if you’re undergoing frequent staff turnover, a change in leadership, or an understaffed time frame, you may find an issues-based strategic planning model to be the best choice.

This nonprofit strategic planning model helps organizations get back on track if you seem to have slightly strayed from the path to success.

To implement this strategic planning model, you should conduct the following steps:

• Brainstorm the elements that are holding your organization back from success.
• Decide how to address each of those elements to get your organization back on track.
• Carefully monitor your progress and adjust the strategy accordingly.

Consider the following scenario: Your nonprofit has limited staff and therefore struggles to increase your fundraising revenue. The element holding you back is your lack of human resources to raise funds. Consequently, you may decide to address this by making the most of your current supporter base.

In this case, you might focus your attention on developing relations with your current supporters and increasing revenue by building donor retention. Additionally, you may want to prioritize expanding your monthly recurring donor list to create more consistent revenue.

Therefore, you craft a plan to assign each team member an activity to help achieve these goals. Instead of rapidly trying to expand, you’ll focus on keeping fundraising activities and revenue steady to give you time to hire new staff members at the organization.

An issues-based nonprofit strategic planning model is a living plan. Instead of setting it in stone, you have milestones to check in and make adjustments based on your progress and results. 

Organic Nonprofit Strategic Planning Model

The organic or nonlinear nonprofit strategic planning model is best used when there are uncertain external factors. If you’re unsure or feeling unsteady about what the climate will look like shortly, this model might be a good choice for your organization.

Using this model, your team comes together to solidify their understanding of the organization’s mission and goals. Each person then comes up with actionable next steps to help get closer to that goal by the next time the group meets.

Generally, this model looks something like this:

• You and your team members go out on a retreat to unify your understanding of the organization’s big-picture goals.
• Each team member examines their own strengths and decides on an actionable goal they can achieve based on that strength by a certain date.
• The team meets together again either quarterly or annually (or as frequently as you’d like) to discuss your progress toward each goal and mission impact.

For instance, you may find that one team member, Tommy, is especially good at face-to-face communication on the retreat. He’s empathetic and understanding and would be a great candidate for holding meetings with major donors to establish relationships with them. He may have a goal to leverage the information in your new donor database to foster relationships and grow major giving by 10% within the following year.

This model never looks the same for two organizations. Each team member has inherent strengths, so this model is designed to help your nonprofit make the most of those strengths. 

Real-Time Nonprofit Strategic Planning Model

The real-time nonprofit strategic planning model is best used when your nonprofit is in the midst of a crisis, like an economic recession or national/global catastrophe. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many nonprofits may have found this strategic model incredibly helpful.

This model relies on extreme focus for short-term goals that aim to help you weather the storm. Your nonprofit staff members might meet as frequently as every week to discuss your progress for these short-term goals. The model usually looks like this:

• Your organization frequently meets as a large group to define short-term objectives for individual team members.
• In these team meetings, you discuss whether you’ve met these goals, your day-to-day progress, and any roadblocks your organization members face.
• After the crisis period, your organization can take inventory of the progress made or damage done, thank team members for their hard work, and create a new strategic plan using a different model. 

Consider the following situation: During the coronavirus pandemic, your nonprofit staff members work from home, you’ve canceled events, and your fundraising revenue has dramatically declined.

In response to the pandemic, you create new short-term goals each week. During the first week, you decide to write a grant proposal. The next week, you hear about the CARES Act and apply for the Payment Protection Program. The week after, you launch a marketing campaign informing supporters of the above-the-line deduction on charitable donations for the year to encourage them to continue giving to your nonprofit.

As you can see, these goals are small and manageable in a short time. Goals are created as responses to the direct impact that external forces have on your organization’s internal operations. 

Alignment Nonprofit Strategic Planning Model

The alignment nonprofit strategic planning model is best when your organization has great individual departments or team members but has trouble when it comes to communication between these departments.

This model tends to look something like this:

• Your organization meets together to learn about the issues each team member faces in their position.
• Re-establish the common mission that everyone on your team is working towards.
• Come up with little tweaks that your team can use to improve communication processes at the organization.

For instance, say your organization has an incredible grant writer, an excellent executive director, a communicative and empathetic major gift officer, and very capable fundraisers. However, they have trouble communicating with one another about the nonprofit’s goals and what each of them is doing to reach those goals. The result is discord among teams and a lack of progress.

In this case, consider ways to encourage teamwork between members. You may provide an overall fundraising goal for your fundraisers and major gift officer to work together on. Or you may set up check-in meetings for everyone to meet with the executive director and ensure that the director knows what’s happening and can prioritize accordingly.

The alignment nonprofit strategic planning model is a great way to set up some new communication standards and processes to incorporate moving forward as a team.

3. Define elements of your nonprofit strategic plan.

Before you’re able to start working on your nonprofit strategic plan, you should know the different elements that go into the creation process. Here are the different elements you should be aware of:

Overarching Organizational Strategic Plan

Ideally, every three to five years, your board and staff directors will meet to realign regarding goals and begin the strategic planning process. This plan is a living rough draft based on everyone’s ideas.

You’ll discuss measurable objectives for the team to reach and draft the priorities for each of these objectives. You may begin with a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. This can help you start defining goals and start considering which model strategic plan will best work for your organization.

This stage of the planning process is entirely internal but subject to change if significant stakeholders disagree. Your overarching organizational strategic plan is a living document that informs your strategic business plan and should be monitored and adjusted as necessary.

Annual “Business” Strategic Work Plan

Your annual “business” strategic plan is the actionable plan that your organization uses to execute your overarching organizational strategic plan. In this plan, your organization will define different elements such as:

• Your mission statement
• Programs and services you offer
• Measurable outcomes that you want to achieve

There should be one to “generate the voluntary support necessary” to see your business plan through to fruition among your business objectives; that’s what your development plan grows out of.

Nonprofit Mission Statement

Your mission statement should dive into why your organization exists. What is it that you’re trying to accomplish? How are you different from other organizations?

This statement should use precise language but non-finite verbs. This leaves it open for continuous improvement and development on your mission; it will never be complete, but always a work in progress.

For example, The Smithsonian’s mission statement is: Understanding the natural world and our place in it.

Nonprofit Objectives

Your nonprofit objectives should be specific and measurable. Some broad strokes for these objectives that you should include as a part of your nonprofit “business” strategic plan are:

1. Scope of programs and services
2. Priorities for types of programs and services
3. Priorities for target audiences
4. Locations and facilities
5. Community planning and organization
6. Advocacy and public policy
7. Branding/marketing communications
8. Resource development

Putting this information together in your strategic business plan shows your organization’s focus and how your internal actions will lead to progress and growth.

Development Strategic Plan

Your development strategic plan is often also considered your fundraising strategic plan. This is where your organization spells out the aspects and activities to fund all of your big philanthropic plans. 

Planning out your organization’s event (or virtual event) calendar, your campaign types, and the grants you want to research and write will help make up your organization’s funding plan.

For example, you might decide to plan one big nonprofit event per quarter, conduct research to find five grants you will apply for, and choose when to start a feasibility study to see if you’re ready for a capital campaign.

How Each of These Work Together

As you can see, each of these elements of a strategic plan works together to form a complete strategy for your nonprofit.

Your overarching strategic plan provides context and the general goals that you want to reach.

Meanwhile, your business strategic plan creates and defines the objectives that make up those general goals.

Finally, your development strategic plan answers the question of how you’ll fund these initiatives and achieve them.

4. Use these 5 steps to build your strategic development plan.

Now that we’ve laid out all of the types of strategic plans you can choose from and the elements that go into each, it’s time to get a closer look at how your organization can actually start the planning process.

We’ve already touched on how to create your overarching strategic plan and your business plans, both of which are very specific to your organization itself. Now, we’re going to go over building your nonprofit’s development strategy plan. Luckily, you won’t need to start this process from scratch. In addition to the five tips below, Bloomerang offers a sample development plan template that you can use to get started!

1. Know Your Development Plan Goals

The first step is to realize that your development plan goals are directly tied to your goals for philanthropy. Any funds you raise through various fundraising ideas are a means to make this philanthropy happen. The money is not the end goal for your organization; an impact on your mission is.

Use your organization’s budget to determine what your funding needs to look like to achieve your philanthropic goals. Then, break that down into categories for how you’ll raise the money.

For example, of the 100% funding that your nonprofit needs to achieve its philanthropic goals, you may decide to raise:

• 50% from charitable individual contributions in your annual fund
• 20% from your planned giving, legacy, and endowment program
• 20% from corporate giving programs
• 10% from grants

Of course, this is simply an example. Every nonprofit will have a different breakdown of their fundraising goals based on their current fundraising initiatives and their community.

2. Get Input From Key Stakeholders

Instead of just telling your development team to go raise the amount of money you need, you should ask your stakeholders for input about your fundraising goals. Give context about your goals and philanthropic objectives, explaining how each will impact your mission, then ask for feedback about the plan.

Stakeholders might raise the alarm if your fundraising amount is too drastically different from last year or if you’re relying on strategies that have been ineffective in the past. 

For example, let’s say your nonprofit has a good track record with grant writing. You’ve won 80% of the grants you’ve applied for, so you decide to dedicate a large portion of your fundraising revenue plan to be raised using grant money. Seems reasonable, right?

Well, your grant writer may bring up the very valid point that you’ve only been that successful because you’re incredibly picky about the type of grant you apply for. While the percentage looks impressive, there aren’t enough grants out there to meet the goal you’ve set. This is great insight and enables you to switch up your strategy to be as successful as possible.

The different stakeholders you should reach out to include:

• Your board members
• Your staff members
• Key partners
• A fundraising consultant

Running the plan by everyone will help you make sure that the goals you’ve set are achievable and manageable by your team.

3. Determine Your Key Fundraising and Marketing Strategies.

You may consider doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of your past fundraising to better understand what areas you’re already strong in and what could be improved.

Set the areas that need improvement at a lower fundraising goal than the aspects of your strategy that you already know you’re strong in. This way, you can try out different strategies to make these elements stronger without as much pressure.

For example, if you know your nonprofit has an incredible major giving program, specify that a large portion of your fundraising will likely come from this avenue. If you know that you could use improvement on your new donor retention rates, you might set that at a lower goal and use this as an opportunity to try out new things like calling new donors and setting up a welcome email series.

Some of the fundraising and marketing strategies your organization should take into consideration include:

• Major gift fundraising. Major gift fundraising likely makes up a large portion of your proceeds. If it doesn’t already, this is one area of your strategy you’ll want to emphasize improving.
• Donor-centric stewardship. Donor stewardship leads to better retention rates and better fundraising results down the line. This ties in well with your marketing strategy and ensures you’re communicating regularly and effectively with donors.
• New donor acquisition and retention. The second donation a donor gives is the “golden donation” because most donors lapse after the first gift. After the “golden donation”, there’s about a 60% chance they’ll give again.
• Online fundraising. While more revenue probably comes from in-person conversations with major donors, most of your donors probably prefer to give online. It’s convenient so long as your fundraising page is well-optimized.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising. Peer-to-peer fundraising is a great strategy to attract new donors while raising additional funds from your committed supporters. Leverage the power of your social networks to raise funds using this avenue.
• Monthly giving. Recurring gifts are precious because they’re a consistent source of revenue. If someone sets up a recurring gift, you can probably count on that gift being given for an extended period and account for that in your future budget.
• Direct mail fundraising campaigns. Direct mail helps your nonprofit reach a wider audience and expands your communication channels, creating additional touchpoints with supporters. Not to mention, direct mail puts physical reminders of your nonprofit in your supporters’ hands, keeping your cause in the back of their minds.

Read up on the above strategies and think about which ones are the best options for your nonprofit’s capabilities. This judgment call should be based on your historic success with each avenue.

4. Establish SMART Objectives

Objectives help support your mission, acting like benchmarks to help you reach the larger goal. When you set objectives for your fundraising goals, you need to make sure they’re SMART:

• Specific: target a specific area for improvement.
• Measurable: quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
• Assignable: specify who will do it.
• Realistic: state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
• Time-based: specify when you achieve the result(s).

For example, let’s say your goal is to: Reach a certain amount of money from individual contributions to your annual fund. 

Your objectives might look something like this:

• Objective 1: Acquire 500 new donors through your online fundraising page.
• Objective 2: Call 100% of the new donors who give within 90 days of their gift.
• Objective 3: Acquire 200 new donors through a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.
• Objective 4: Expand your monthly giving program by 100 donors.
• Objective 5: Retain 70% of donors from last year.

Objectives are the how, when, where, and why of your nonprofit goals. Dive into the nitty-gritty of it all when you’re laying them out and writing them down.

5. Establish Specific Tactics to Support Each Objective

Your organization should use special supporting and reporting tactics to help keep your team accountable for reaching each of the objectives and (eventually) your development strategic plan’s overall fundraising goals.

Assign each team member an individual job that will help reach these goals. For example, take a look at the following chart:

When everyone is clearly aware of their role at the organization and how their actions will impact the mission at large, you’ll make sure everything gets done. Plus, everyone will have a sense of direction to act as a part of the team and help accomplish goals.

In addition to your team members reprioritizing their activities, don’t forget that sometimes the right answer is automating tasks in order to free up more staff time. If you used to send out the monthly newsletter manually, or personally manage every social media post, consider investing in new software as part of your strategic plan.

Ask yourself some of the following questions.

• What can we automate?
• What areas of our work do we need more time for?
• Who at our company has repetitive tasks that take time away from more important activities?

Sometimes the answer to these questions leads you to invest in new nonprofit software, like matching gift automation software to improve your corporate philanthropy program or social media automation tools to standardize and schedule your posting.  

5. Analyze nonprofit strategic plan templates and examples.

Looking at examples and templates is a great place to start in your nonprofit strategic planning process. It can help give you ideas for what a plan generally looks like.

We’ve compiled a list of resources your nonprofit can use to start this planning process.

Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

Generally, strategic plans take the form of something that looks similar to this:

If you’re looking for more in-depth templates to best plan out different aspects of your strategy, check out these downloadable templates:

• Bloomerang’s Development Plan Template
• Aly Sterling’s Fundraising Strategic Plan Template

Nonprofit Strategic Plan Examples

Here are links to some strategic plans from other nonprofit organizations for you to analyze and consider while you plan your own:

• The Denver Foundation 2011 Strategic Plan
• Taproom Foundation 2015-2017 Strategic Plan
• Habitat for Humanity Portland 2017-2021 Strategic Plan

Your organization should be prepared to structure and create your own nonprofit’s plan between templates and examples.

Nonprofit strategic planning is simply a formality for too many organizations. Development or executive directors put together a plan to stick it in a drawer and never review it again. Don’t be that organization!

Don’t just check off the “strategic plan” box for your nonprofit. Instead, use the information and resources in this guide to create a comprehensive and valuable plan that you’ll use to grow your organization.

Want to learn more about effective planning and nonprofit management? Check out these additional resources:

• Donor Database: The Buyer’s Ultimate Guide for 2021. Looking to buy a donor database to manage your supporter information better? This guide will lead you in the right direction.
• Online Fundraising | Ultimate Success Guide + Tips and Ideas. Your strategic plan includes a development section that outlines your fundraising initiatives for the year. Use this online fundraising guide to amplify those efforts!
• The Ultimate Guide to Year-End Giving for Nonprofits. Year-end giving is one of the most important aspects of your overall fundraising strategy because it likely brings in a large number of donations to your organization. Make this the best year-end giving season yet with the help of this guide.
• Nonprofit Annual Report: 8 Essential Tips [& Template]. While the strategic plan is the beginning of an adventure, the annual report is the end. Tell everyone about the goals you’ve achieved this year in a well-thought-out annual report.