Nonprofits don’t always need the “deeper dive” of a business plan, but if your strategy is setting you in a new direction, a business plan can help you get to where you need to go.

One of the reasons we wrote The Nonprofit Business Plan is that more organizations were coming to us saying that they wanted a business plan, but then couldn’t articulate why – other than that they were looking for something more “robust” than a strategic plan.

In the second podcast in our business planning series, I talk with David La Piana and Heather Gowdy about why and when organizations may need a business plan – or not.

We briefly discuss the difference between strategic planning and business planning, then pose a few key questions that will help nonprofit leaders assess whether they need business planning to test and elaborate on a given strategy (or set of strategies) and begin to narrow in on the uses and audiences for a business plan.

After listening to this podcast, please give us your feedback. What other questions do you have about assessing the need for a nonprofit business plan? Share with us via email, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Tags: business models, business planning, financial model, mission advancement, Nonprofit Sector, nonprofits, strategy, the noprofit business plan

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 7:37 am and is filed under Consulting for Nonprofits, Nonprofit Sector, Organizational Effectiveness, Recommended Reading, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.