Nonprofit Business Plan Strategy - YouTube

what we're going to be discussing are several elements of a non-profit

business plan and why they might be important for your success and starting

a nonprofit organization hi I'm Eric Nasalroad I am the COO here at Aplos

software here at aplos I am an expert in entrepreneurship I've written a

textbook on the subject and I help people start businesses and nonprofits I

have a passion for helping people start organizations nonprofit and social good

companies and I'm part owner of several social good companies and believer in

philanthropy and so it's been a lot of time helping other organizations be

better at what they do and giving to those organizations in many different

ways so a non-profit business plan is essentially a document that helps a

non-profit entrepreneur put their vision on paper so that one they can record all

their ideas in a systematic way but two they can share that vision with other

people so that other people would understand what they're trying to

accomplish I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what a business

plan is and what it's supposed to do there's many people think you need a

business plan to go get money from a bank which doesn't usually happen

especially with a startup most of the time if you need a business plan to get

money from a bank for your nonprofit or for your regular business it's after

you've been in business for a few years so an initial like you're starting a

non-profit why would you do a business plan it's it's really so you can gather

all of your thoughts and be clear about what it is that you're trying to

accomplish it has nothing to do with anyone else except for you it's really

about making sure that you've thought through all the things that you need to

think through so that as you're launching this you know this

organization that you've thought of all the details so that when you actually

physically go file your paperwork with the state or with your city or you start

providing services for people you're not caught off guard by something that you

may not have thought of depending on the organization there can be several

elements in a non-profit business plan one essential piece that's specific to

nonprofits is some sort of fundraising plan whether that's a series of events

and you're gonna have golf tournament fundraisers or car washes or you're

gonna rely on volunteers and you're just coordinating events for providing

services the fundraising aspect of a non-profit has to be thought out how are

you gonna pay your own salary for example or are you going to start a

non-profit as a side thing and you have your regular day job and then hopefully

if it grows big enough then do you pay yourself so a fundraising plan would be

in there a service plan or some kind of something that identifies what your

cause is and how you try to solve it so from a planning standpoint the cause

really is the problem that you're trying to solve so maybe it's homelessness and

you want to fight homelessness so what you would do is you would identify you

know how many homeless people are in your area what are their needs how

specifically do you plan to help because there could be several nonprofits one

may just want to feed homeless people another may want to provide housing for

homeless people so your solution to that problem is your specific cause so there

would be some kind of outline of how it is that you want to attack the cause or

help the cause and and solve for those needs so those would be specific and

you'd want those in there you would also have some sort of financial pro formas

projections it's not because you want to go get a loan or anything like that it's

simply so that you make sure your bills are paid in the future so if you have

your fundraising plan that's essentially your income and then whatever your cause

that you want to serve you're gonna have things that you serve those cosmic so

maybe you're running events that cost money maybe you're providing meals for

almost people that cost money so you just want to make sure that you've

planned for that coming in when are you going to need it

and make sure we have enough of that and so a financial plan would be part of

that some nonprofits will include a marketing plan that's just really it's

more about launching the nonprofit to the community it's for the benefit of

those who would receive care and it's also for the benefit of people who would

want to come alongside that nonprofit and maybe be donors maybe be fund

raisers maybe but be volunteers that believe in that cause so some kind of

marketing plan would be relevant to most nonprofit business plans and it doesn't

have to be a paid for advertising plan it's it could literally be I need to go

print a bunch of flyers or I need to have all of my friends over for dinner

and tell them about what I want to do and it can start that simple but it

could be if we're going bigger to be even more dynamic than that typically

most people want to help most people are really good when it comes to the idea

generation with helping and starting a non-profit and we love bouncing ideas

off of friends and this is all a very important piece of starting a non-profit

but you we almost want to make sure we go to that next level of writing it down

thinking how does my marketing plan a line with my fundraising plan or my

fundraising events at the right time of year for when I'm going to need the

money to actually provide for this cause so it just helps us to see it as a whole

from a you know top level view maybe 30,000 foot view to make sure everything

works together because one-off things sound great and often are fine but

sometimes when we have this thing going over here and this thing going over here

and we haven't thought of them together they're not gonna work out and so having

that plan will help us to have more success and that you know means serving

more people really

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