during his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told a story about two men: one who built his house upon a rock and another who built his house upon sand. the house built upon a rock weathered the storm; but the house built on the sand collapsed and the builder is called foolish.

i am a true believer in the importance of a compelling strategy and a financing plan to deliver your organisation’s short-term and long-term goals. but if your nonprofit is not built on rock solid finances and governance everything else is probably a waste of time.

small charities are often bleeding money and draining the bank account dry because its board is disengaged and/or lacks the skills to steer the nonprofit into sustainability. if you are putting out fires to survive, you probably won’t be able to plan for the long term.

some of the challenges which need to be solved before strategy building, include:

• a dysfunctional or disengaged board that is not connecting your nonprofit with money, people and partners
• not enough skills and experience in fundraising, marketing, finance and governance
• over-reliance on limited funding streams

so how do you know if you are truly ready to launch a strategic planning process?

a great way to understand your organisation’s needs and what is holding your nonprofit back is this FREE online nonprofit health check. it will help to determine your journey toward a high impact financially sustainable nonprofit organisation. the assessment will guide you on how to best use your resources now:

foundational steps (rock not sand):

• a credible recovery plan to ensure the nonprofit is cash flow positive, so you always have enough cash to pay your bills
• a board evaluation and skills assessment to ensure you have the right people in the room to sustainably scale your nonprofit impact
• a financing growth assessment to understand your readiness and capacity to attract more money. it assesses your internal resources, programs, capabilities and systems to identify gaps, challenges, or risks that hinder your money-raising efforts

capacity building steps (house on a rock):

• a compelling Strategy-on-a-Page to clarify your nonprofit’s vision, mission, goals and needs and give funders the confidence to invest in its programs.
• a compelling and consistent Case for Support which explains the change your nonprofit makes and why donors and funders should support your cause
• a financing plan that is fully integrated with your strategy to fund the short and long term goals of your nonprofit. it describes your financing activities and how its resources, budget, people and systems are allocated

foundational steps are sometimes necessary when your nonprofit is spinning wheels and not ready to make the big, long-term decisions necessary in a strategic planning process.

PS: feedback on improving the assessment welcome!