Nonprofit business plan template written for funders and boards
The standard eleven chapters, with guidance on what changes: programs instead of products, a funding mix instead of revenue, and the governance section commercial templates leave out. No email required.
- How to cost programs per person, which is what grant committees compare
- Laying out a funding mix by source and reliability
- Writing the governance and impact sections funders score
Word
Google DocsThirty-one pages, written for the sector: programs, funding mix, governance and impact, with a statement of activities in place of a profit and loss. There is no break-even line and no income tax line, because neither applies.
Six chapters that mean something else here
The template is the standard eleven chapters. What changes is what belongs in them when there is no owner, no profit and a funder rather than a customer on the other side.
Five income sources, and how steady each one is
A commercial plan has a revenue model. You have a mix, and the mix is what gets assessed. Two organisations raising the same amount can look completely different here.
Restricted grants
Predictable, then cliff-edgedReliable for the term and then gone. They also cannot be spent on the thing that usually needs funding, which is core running costs. Show the end date of each one in the plan rather than a single grant income line.
Unrestricted giving
Variable, most valuableIndividual donors and regular givers. Harder to grow and worth more per dollar than anything else, because it pays for the staff and the rent. Worth its own section on how you intend to build it.
Service contracts
Stable, administratively heavyDelivering something for a public body or a larger charity. Steady money, often paid in arrears, which is a cash flow problem rather than an income one. Model the payment timing, not just the amount.
Earned income
Slow to start, yours to keepSelling something related to the mission. Takes a few years to matter and is usually the route to not being grant-dependent. Say honestly where it is in that arc.
Events
Overestimated almost every timeCount the staff hours against the net, not the gross. Plenty of events raise a respectable sum and lose money once the time is priced in, and a funder reading closely will notice before you do.
Put these in the plan as a table with each source, the amount, and the month it starts and ends. A funder can read concentration risk off that in seconds, which is the point.
Governance and impact, written properly
These are the two sections a commercial template has no equivalent of, and the two most often scored directly in a grant application. Here is what actually goes in each.
The governance section
Who is on the board and what they bring
Name, role outside the organisation, and the specific thing they are there for. Finance, legal, lived experience of the issue, a link to the community you serve. A list of job titles with no stated purpose reads as a board assembled from whoever was available.
What the board decides and what staff decide
Write the dividing line down. Spending thresholds, hiring, program changes. Assessors look for an organisation where one person is not quietly doing all three, and this is where they look.
How often it meets, and quorum
Quarterly is the common minimum. If attendance has been thin, say so and say what you are changing. A plan that admits a governance weakness and has a fix is stronger than one that implies everything is fine.
Conflict of interest and safeguarding
Say that the policies exist, when they were last reviewed, and who reviews them. One short paragraph. Its absence is noticed far more than its presence is rewarded.
The impact section
Separate what you did from what changed
Forty workshops delivered is an activity. Thirty-one of the attendees still in work six months later is an outcome. Report both, clearly labelled, and never let the first stand in for the second.
Say how you collected it
A follow-up call, a form at the door, data from a partner agency. One sentence of method turns a figure into evidence. Numbers with no stated method are the first thing an experienced assessor discounts.
Give the denominator
Eighty percent of respondents is meaningless if four people replied. Write it as a fraction and let the reader judge. It costs you nothing and buys more credibility than the percentage would have.
Include what did not work
One program that underperformed, with what you changed, does more for a funder's confidence than six successes. It tells them you measure honestly, which is the thing they are really trying to establish.
Want more on the sector side? Our guide to writing a nonprofit business plan goes into the parts this template only has room to prompt for.
Reporting to a board every quarter? Upmetrics keeps the numbers current.
Not quite the right one?
Same template underneath. What changes is the guidance around it, and which sections do the work.
- Startup business plan templatePre-revenue, forecasting from assumptions with no trading history behind you.
- Small business plan templateAlready trading, writing from your own accounts rather than guesses.
- Simple business plan templateSix chapters instead of eleven, and which four you can safely cut.
- One page business plan templateThe whole business on a single sheet, with a worked example.
- 5 year business plan templateYear one monthly, years two to five annual, for a longer horizon.
Or go back to the full business plan template.
Grant deadlines do not move. The budget should not be the hold-up.
Build the funding mix once and let the cash flow and the board report update themselves as figures change.
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