Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Planning for Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit staff often concentrates on those it serves and focuses less on analyzing competition and allocating resources. However, since the beginning of the Great Recession, this trend is changing. For-profit businesses compete for customers, and their very survival depends on providing services or products to satisfied, paying clients. Nonprofit organizations operate in competitive markets, where their revenues (often relying on grants or memberships) minus their costs don't yield a large surplus.

With a growing number of nonprofit organizations offering similar services, stakeholders want to ensure that the organization provides optimal results for the resources they've been given. Nonprofits are finding that success only increases the number of competitors entering the field to compete for grants. Growing competition in the nonprofit market has made grant money and membership contributions scarce, even as need and demand increase.

Today, nonprofit organizations find themselves competing for a small pool of resources. In order to compete more effectively, today's executive directors are required to understand their competitors, rethink their business processes, create a sustainable competitive advantage, implement business best practices, and increase collaboration where appropriate. I touch on these activities in the following sections. ...