Tips for Managing Nonprofit Overhead Expenses
Imagine if a nonprofit organization spent 80 percent of its revenue on fundraising events and 20 percent of its revenue on supporting its causes and clients. Donors would quickly question whether they [more…]
Nonprofit Fundraising: Opening Hearts, Minds, and Wallets
Fundraising will probably play a starring role in your business plan for the simple reason that it’s crucial to the health and well-being of most nonprofit organizations. In your plan, be sure to describe [more…]
How to Organize Your Nonprofit Business
In your nonprofit business plan, include your organizational chart, indicating which positions are paid and which are opportunities for volunteer assistance. Assign titles — director of programs, for example [more…]
Nonprofit Research and Development (R&D)
In the nonprofit arena, research and development(R&D) rarely involves technological breakthroughs or science and engineering feats. For nonprofits, R&D usually means researching issues that affect the [more…]
Nonprofit Fundraising and Finance Management
Because fundraising is so crucial to many nonprofit organizations, your written plan needs to explain exactly where you intend to get the money to support your efforts and how much you expect to raise. [more…]
Targeted Nonprofit Fundraising to Major Donors
For some nonprofits, targeted fundraising may be inevitable. Ideally, a nonprofit fundraising plan will be diversified and it will get support from a wide range of donors. But some nonprofits, because [more…]
Online Business Planning: Monitor Industry Changes Year-Round
When you’re running an online business, you can’t rely on once-a-year planning to scan your business environment and monitor your company’s performance. The online world is constantly changing as new opportunities [more…]
Online Business Planning Issues
The only thing that anyone can say about the Internet with any certainty is that it’s changing, and changing fast. How can you plan your online business in such an environment? Whether you’re starting, [more…]
Online Business Planning: Basic Principles
It’s easy to think the fundamental rules of business planning and operation have changed with the rise of social networking, apps, smart phones that do everything but prepare dinner, music and books delivered [more…]
Online Business Planning: Know Your Customer and Value Proposition
Whether you’re opening a web-based company or adding an Internet extension to an existing company, your business plan needs to describe the customers you intend to attract — and how you expect them to [more…]
Pitfalls of Online Business Planning
You can avoid some of the pitfalls of online business planning because they've already been identified by some early online-business adventurers. As they forged the path into the world of e-business, they [more…]
Tips for Funding Your Online Business
A written business plan is an absolute must for an Internet venture. In fact, if you’re seeking funding, you’ll have a hard time finding a serious investor who will even let you past the receptionist without [more…]
Business Financing Terminology
People in the world of business financing talk a language all their own. When you enter the world of VCs and angels, you need a glossary of jargon to know to talk the talk. [more…]
Business Planning in an Online World
A good online-business plan must try to forecast the future — and present options in case that forecast doesn't come to pass. A smart strategy must try to take full advantage of existing web-based applications [more…]
Online Business Value-Proposition Development Worksheet
By understanding the needs of your customers and the value that your e-business offers (the value proposition), you can communicate to your customers that you have what they want to buy — and what they’re [more…]
Ten Questions to Ask Before You Finish Your Business Plan
By the time you’re ready to dot the last i and cross that last t of your written business plan, chances are you’re more than ready to be done with it. But before you sign off, review the plan one last [more…]
Benefits of Writing a Business Plan
You can expect some good payoffs from writing down your business plan, even if you find putting one word in front of another as excruciating as rolling boulders up a hill. Whether you're writng a business [more…]
Recommended Resources for Business Planning
As you put your business plan together, you may discover that you need some additional tools — a book devoted to marketing, for example. You can find dozens of useful titles in the marketplace — particularly [more…]
Tips for Doing Business-Planning Research Online
The Internet hosts an ever-growing number of websites offering information on business planning. Some are free; most tease you with samples of what they have to offer and then charge you for more details [more…]
How to Choose Business-Planning Software
Software programs allow you to automatically assemble all the components of a business plan, turning them into a polished, ready-to-print document. The best programs also make easier work of the financial [more…]
How to Find Business-Planning Experts for Advice
The first place to look for expert business planning advice is in your address book. No one knows the ins and outs of planning and running a business better than someone who has done it before. If have [more…]
Track Your Business-Planning Process and Progress
Two simple tools can go a long way toward streamlining the business-plan assembly process — and keeping everyone involved calm and happy. One tool is a simple tracking sheet that shows at a glance where [more…]
Target Your Business Plan to Key Audiences
Immediately after you decide who’s going to write your business plan, you need to think about who’s going to read it. After all, your business plan should communicate your vision and strategy — what you [more…]
How to Address Multiple Stakeholders in Your Business Plan
Different people will read your business plan for different reasons. Some may have direct stakes: You owe them money, for example, or they own a piece of your company. Others have less tangible interests [more…]
Do You Need Alternate Versions of Your Business Plan?
No law limits you to just one version of your business plan. In fact, many companies write alyernate versions specifically targeted to different audiences — for example, one aimed at employees, another [more…]
