Your nonprofit exists to change your community for the better. Whether you’re part of a public hospital, a wildlife conservation group, or a food bank, you want nothing more than to expand your impact from one year to the next. However, accomplishing more doesn’t necessarily mean doing more. Be more effective in your fundraising and volunteer efforts with a nonprofit strategic plan
By developing a clear strategic plan for your nonprofit, you can ensure that your organization continues carrying out its mission without spreading itself too thin. Setting focused, measurable goals allows your team to make confident and data-driven decisions that align with your overarching purpose. In this guide, we’ll share some tips for crafting strategic goals and walk through common types you can include in your next strategic plan.
There is no definitive set of goals or priorities that your nonprofit needs to outline in its strategic plan. After all, every organization differs in terms of how it operates, which resources it has, and what it’s trying to achieve in the long term.
To design goals that are tailored specifically to your nonprofit’s situation and needs, start with these steps:
Review your past finances, key performance indicators (KPIs), major changes, and recent challenges. Then, take a look at similar organizations to get a better idea of how they run programs and what strategies they employ. Gathering this context can help you narrow down your priorities for the near future.
By reaching out to your staff, donors, volunteers, and other community members, you can factor their concerns and suggestions into your goal-setting. Laridae’s strategic planning guide recommends enlisting a third-party expert to conduct online surveys, focus groups, town hall meetings, and one-on-one interviews to allow for more open and honest communication from your stakeholders.
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Your strategic plan’s goals should be clear and ambitious, but reasonable at the same time. By adding concrete deadlines, you ensure that your team can measure its progress along the way and make adjustments as needed to get the results you want.
Remember that unlocking truly actionable insights for your goal-setting requires having accurate and organized data to reference. Maintain data hygiene by using standard data entry formats across your nonprofit and auditing your database at least once a year to identify strategic improvements that take your impact to the next level.
Some common types of goals your nonprofit might include in its strategic plan are:
As time goes on, your nonprofit might spot more and more community needs cropping up in its focus area. As a result, your team may feel compelled to take on new initiatives or expand your programs beyond their original scope. While these activities can be a common part of any organization’s growth, you need to ensure that they’re all directly aligned with your mission.
Strategic planning provides an ideal opportunity for your leadership team and board members to re-examine your mission, vision, and values. In doing so, they can clarify whether your nonprofit’s current pursuits are aligned with the impact you’re trying to create and adapt your approach accordingly. For example, your team might decide that it needs to produce a new set of communication materials that articulate your mission and outline your desired outcomes more clearly.
Your nonprofit’s success depends on the involvement of an entire community—your staff, volunteers, donors, board members, and more. To get the word out about your cause and secure more long-term support, you might set goals to:
To assess your performance, keep track of metrics such as your outreach event attendance, social media followers, newsletter opt-ins, or website traffic.
To set your nonprofit up for long-term success and sustainability, you must establish a strong foundation with your staff and internal processes. If you’ve determined that you need to build capacity and increase efficiency in your organization, you might commit to:
As you put your strategic plan into action, you can use skill assessments and KPIs such as training completion rates or employee retention rates to determine whether your efforts are paying off.
For many nonprofits, their programs and services are some of the most direct ways for them to make a difference in the lives of those they serve. If this applies to your organization, you might use your strategic plan to plot out your next programmatic priorities, whether you want to launch a new program or enhance the quality of your existing services.
Your nonprofit, for example, could decide to put a new framework in place for evaluating the effectiveness of your programs using participant feedback and additional metrics. Or, you might determine that you need to reallocate your existing resources to make your services more accessible to people in your community.
The Communications Network has found that, over the past few years, racial diversity across nonprofit staff, senior leadership, and board members has been trending upward. Additionally, more organizations are beginning to speak out on current events and issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
As DEI becomes more and more of a priority in the nonprofit sector, your organization might set goals related to implementing diverse hiring practices and providing inclusive training to staff members. You could also focus on improving access to your services by updating your website with accessibility best practices and adding multilingual support to your programs.
To maintain and expand your nonprofit’s impact, you need to ensure that your team always has the resources it needs to carry out its essential activities. To improve your financial health and develop more stable revenue streams to rely on, you might include some of the following goals in your strategic plan:
As you pursue new fundraising opportunities, keep an eye on metrics such as your fundraising return on investment (ROI) and the number of gifts secured to identify which strategies are resonating most with your donors.
By harnessing the power of your nonprofit’s community, you can accomplish more together. With this in mind, one of your strategic priorities might involve building mutually beneficial partnerships with local businesses and organizations. According to 360MatchPro, common types of support corporate partners could provide include:
When seeking these partnerships, be sure to find companies that have similar values to your nonprofit. Doing so ensures that you can both work toward a shared vision and goals, no matter what format the partnership takes.
