How can you develop an effective business strategy in the nonprofit sector?

Une organisation à but non lucratif sert en général des objectifs d'intérêt général et elle a une mission, une raison d'être. Souvent les salariés d'une organisation à but non lucratif ont du mal à concilier le statut non lucratif avec une stratégie concurrentielle offensive. Il est donc essentiel d'aligner la stratégie commerciale avec cette raison d'être afin que l'ensemble des commerciaux et des équipes soient à l'aise avec cette dualité : une organisation à but non lucratif doit souvent avoir une stratégie commerciale ne serait ce que pour compléter ses sources de financement. Et cette stratégie commerciale doit être alignée avec les valeurs de l'organisation.

Clearly articulate the mission and values of your nonprofit organization. Define the overarching purpose that guides all strategic decisions. For example, if your nonprofit focuses on education, specify the long-term impact you aim to achieve, such as increasing literacy rates in underserved communities. Example: Our organization's purpose is to empower youth through education, fostering a passion for learning that transcends socio-economic barriers.

As a chair for a charity this is so important. Being aligned to a common strategy and purpose is essential. It’s the reason you exist, why people show up, and why people support your cause.

Conduct a thorough analysis of your nonprofit's internal and external environment. Understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This assessment informs strategic decisions. If, for instance, your organization faces funding challenges, addressing this in your strategy becomes crucial. Example: A comprehensive SWOT analysis revealed that our strong volunteer network is a key strength, while limited funding poses a challenge that needs strategic solutions.

I also think that business, whether profit or not for profit, can be complex. So don’t make your objectives difficult to understand or follow. By all means make them challenging, but keep them simple and don’t have too many! We have 4, and we track them and report on them at every Board meeting.

Establish clear, measurable, and time-bound objectives aligned with your mission. Define specific outcomes you aim to achieve. If your nonprofit focuses on healthcare, an objective might be to reduce disease prevalence in a target community by a certain percentage within a specified timeframe. Example: One of our objectives is to improve maternal healthcare access, aiming to decrease maternal mortality rates by 20% in the next three years.

Identify strategies that align with your objectives. Consider fundraising, partnerships, advocacy, or direct service delivery. For instance, if your objective is to expand your outreach, a strategy could involve forming collaborations with local community organizations to amplify your impact. Example: To broaden our impact, we adopted a strategy of forming strategic alliances with local healthcare providers to enhance our outreach and service delivery.

Execute your strategies systematically. Mobilize resources efficiently, engage stakeholders, and initiate programs or projects. If your nonprofit aims to provide clean water access, implementation involves securing funding, partnering with local water utilities, and launching community awareness campaigns. Example: Implementation of our clean water initiative involved securing grants, partnering with water purification experts, and conducting educational workshops in target communities.

In my socio-economic organization MediAceso, We started off with donating cervical cancer check ups & pap-smear kits for cancer detection. This activity was solely funded by private donors, though it was a great cause over time it started losing momentum and we had to rethink a way to fund this philanthropic activity by enterprising it. We looked deep into the causes of cervical cancer and identified an area of poor menstrual hygiene and the usage of bleached pads and tampons. This is when we decided to launch Asia's first sustainable menstrual care product - Shecup which is a high quality health grade silicone menstrual cup back in 2009! By doing this we were not only able to enterprise our philanthropic endeavors also enhance impact.