Essentials of Nonprofit Strategy

A nonprofit's strategy determines whether the organization will sink or swim. Nonetheless, nonprofit leaders are often unable or unwilling to plan in the short-term to achieve long-lasting social change.

This course will help you develop successful strategies to achieve your organization's goals and make strides towards meaningful impact. Using the social problem of homelessness as a real-world example, you will learn how to undertake the basic elements of strategy: defining the problem, identifying the needs and interests of beneficiaries, designing a theory of change and implementation plan, and establishing assessment criteria. With this foundation, you will be able to develop strategies that will ensure long-term impact for your own organizations — rather than just the illusion of results.

Module 1: Define the Problem


Clarify the problem that you want to solve

Module 2: Identify Beneficiaries' Needs and Interests


Identify your beneficaries and consider how their needs should inform your understanding of the problem

Module 3: Causes of the Problem and Approaches to Solving It


Assess different approaches to solving the problem after you have identified its causes

Module 4: Theory of Change and Planning to Implement


Define the intended ultimate outcome for solving your problem and build a series of causal links to identify how you will get there

Module 5: Changing Beneficiaries’ Behavior and Anticipating Failure


Identify barriers to changing behaviors and conduct a basic pre-mortem of your strategy to anticipate and plan for risks and barriers

Module 6: Preparing for Feedback

Specify how your organization will evaluate its effectiveness

Module 7: Program Evaluation


Review how to determine whether your strategy caused its intended outcomes