Читать книгу Nonprofit Kit For Dummies - Stan Hutton, Beverly A. Browning - Страница 18

After you start managing a nonprofit organization, you’ll discover that planning is your best friend. Every task from budgeting to grant-writing requires that you make plans for the future. This continuous planning process for nonprofit leaders (founders and board members) is called strategic planning. And you need to do a substantial amount of strategic planning before you’re ready to send in your IRS application for tax exemption.

Don’t be frightened by this recommendation to plan strategically early on in the nonprofit formation process. The act of strategic planning fundamentally comes down to thinking through what you’re going to do as well as how and when you’re going to do it and writing it down. Your strategic plan becomes the map that guides you toward achieving your nonprofit’s mission, vision, and goals. Strategic planning is something you should pay attention to every day.

You should always begin with a strategic plan, but that doesn’t mean that the original plans shouldn’t be altered when the situation calls for it. Circumstances change; flexibility and adaptability are good traits to nurture if you’re running a nonprofit organization. Chapters 8 and 12 cover strategic planning and budgeting. Chapter 9 addresses how to evaluate your work and know whether your plans are achieving the results you want to see. Chapters 13 and 14 discuss planning for marketing and fundraising.