business plan for a charity template

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• Nonprofit & Community

Charity Business Plan

Starting a charity business is a huge responsibility. To make a positive impact in society, you will need to build your charity business strong, for which you will need a detailed business plan.

Need help writing a business plan for your charity business? You’re at the right place. Our charity business plan template will help you get started.

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Download our free charity business plan template now and pave the way to success. Let’s turn your vision into an actionable strategy!

• Fill in the blanks – Outline
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How to Write A Charity Business Plan?

Writing a charity business plan is a crucial step toward the success of your business. Here are the key steps to consider when writing a business plan:

1. Executive Summary

An executive summary is the first section planned to offer an overview of the entire business plan. However, it is written after the entire business plan is ready and summarizes each section of your plan.

Here are a few key components to include in your executive summary:

• Introduce your Business: Start your executive summary by briefly introducing your business to your readers. This section may include the name of your charity business, its location, when it was founded, the type of charity business (E.g., humanitarian charities, environmental charities, community development charities), etc.
• Market Opportunity: Summarize your market research, including market size, growth potential, and marketing trends. Highlight the opportunities in the market and how your business will fit in to fill the gap.
• Programs: Highlight the charity programs you offer your clients. The USPs and differentiators you offer are always a plus. For instance, you may include direct assistance, healthcare & medical services, social services, community development, etc.
• Marketing & Sales Strategies: Outline your sales and marketing strategies—what marketing platforms you use, how you plan on acquiring customers, etc.
• Financial Highlights: Briefly summarize your financial projections for the initial years of business operations. Include any capital or investment requirements, associated startup costs, projected revenues, and profit forecasts.
• Call to Action: Summarize your executive summary section with a clear CTA, for example, inviting angel investors to discuss the potential business investment.

Ensure your executive summary is clear, concise, easy to understand, and jargon-free.

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2. Business Overview

The business overview section of your business plan offers detailed information about your company. The details you add will depend on how important they are to your business. Yet, business name, location, business history, and future goals are some of the foundational elements you must consider adding to this section:

• Humanitarian charities
• Public charity
• Private charity
• Health charities
• Educational charities
• Environmental charities
• Animal welfare charities
• Describe the legal structure of your charity company, whether it is a sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership, or others.
• Explain where your business is located and why you selected the place.
• Owners: List the names of your charity company’s founders or owners. Describe what shares they own and their responsibilities for efficiently managing the business.
• Mission Statement: Summarize your business’ objective, core principles, and values in your mission statement. This statement needs to be memorable, clear, and brief.
• Business History: If you’re an established charity service provider, briefly describe your business history, like—when it was founded, how it evolved over time, etc. Additionally, If you have received any awards or recognition for excellent work, describe them.
• Future Goals: It’s crucial to convey your aspirations and vision. Mention your short-term and long-term goals; they can be specific targets for revenue, market share, or expanding your services.

This section should provide a thorough understanding of your business, its history, and its future plans. Keep this section engaging, precise, and to the point.

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis section of your business plan should offer a thorough understanding of the industry with the target market, competitors, and growth opportunities. You should include the following components in this section.

• Target market: Start this section by describing your target market. Define your ideal customer and explain what types of services they prefer. Creating a buyer persona will help you easily define your target market to your readers. For instance, individual donors, corporate donors, government agencies, etc would be an ideal target audience for a charity business.
• Conduct SWOT analysis: Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to determine the internal and external factors that may have an impact on the success of the charity.
• Competitive Analysis: Identify and analyze your direct and indirect competitors. Identify their strengths and weaknesses, and describe what differentiates your charity from them. Point out how you have a competitive edge in the market.
• Market Trends: Analyze emerging trends in the industry, such as technology disruptions, changes in customer behavior or preferences, etc. Explain how your business will cope with all the trends. For instance, there is a rise in online and digital giving has a booming market; explain how you plan on dealing with this potential growth opportunity.
• Regulatory Environment: List regulations and licensing requirements that may affect your charity company, such as legal structure & registration, tax-exempt status, reporting & financial transparency, fundraising regulations, etc.

Here are a few tips for writing the market analysis section of your charity business plan:

• Conduct market research, industry reports, and surveys to gather data.
• Provide specific and detailed information whenever possible.
• Illustrate your points with charts and graphs.
• Write your business plan keeping your target audience in mind.

4. Products of Your Bicycle Shop

The product and services section should describe the specific services and products that will be offered to customers. To write this section should include the following:

• Direct assistance
• Education and training
• Healthcare & medical services
• Social services
• Advocacy and awareness
• Describe the objectives behind programs: Give a brief description of the main aims and objectives of each program or service your charity provides. Explain in detail how these programs are created to meet the needs of your intended recipients and advance your overall purpose.
• Supportive services: Describe these services and how they support your primary programs if your charity offers them in addition to your core offerings, such as counseling, advocacy, or educational resources.

In short, this section of your charity plan must be informative, precise, and client-focused. By providing a clear and compelling description of your offerings, you can help potential investors and readers understand the value of your business.

5. Sales And Marketing Strategies

Writing the sales and marketing strategies section means a list of strategies you will use to attract and retain your clients. Here are some key elements to include in your sales & marketing plan:

• Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Define your business’s USPs depending on the market you serve, the equipment you use, and the unique services you provide. Identifying USPs will help you plan your marketing strategies. For example, a clear mission & impact, innovative approach, specialized expertise, collaborations & partnership, etc could be some of the great USPs for a charity company.
• Marketing Mix: Describe your marketing mix to reach your target audience, including product, price, promotion, and place elements of your marketing strategy. Your strategy should consider how you will create and deliver value, how you will price your offerings, how you will communicate and persuade, and how you will distribute and deliver your offerings.
• Marketing channels: Describe how your organization intends to reach its target audience. In addition to social media, email marketing, public relations, events, webinars, partnerships, and direct email, you may use other marketing channels to promote your offerings.
• Fundraising Strategies: Describe the fundraising strategies you plan on implementing to generate revenue for your nonprofit. Your nonprofit may generate income from grants, major gifts, individual giving, charity events, online fundraising, corporate sponsorship, etc. Identify fundraising strategies that align with the nonprofit’s mission, vision, and values.
• Donor Retention: Describe how your nonprofit will retain donors and build loyalty. Your donor retention strategies may involve sending regular updates and impact reports, creating donor recognition programs, or asking for feedback and input.

Overall, this section of your charity business plan should focus on customer acquisition and retention.

Have a specific, realistic, and data-driven approach while planning sales and marketing strategies for your charity business, and be prepared to adapt or make strategic changes in your strategies based on feedback and results.

6. Operations Plan

The operations plan section of your business plan should outline the processes and procedures involved in your business operations, such as staffing requirements and operational processes. Here are a few components to add to your operations plan:

• Staffing & Training: Mention your business’s staffing requirements, including the number of employees or fundraising coordinator, program manager, or other staff needed. Include their qualifications, the training required, and the duties they will perform.
• Operational Process: Outline the processes and procedures you will use to run your charity business. Your operational processes may include program development & management, fundraising & donor management, financial management, marketing & communications, etc.
• Equipment & Software: Include the list of equipment and software required for charity, such as office equipment, software & IT infrastructure, communication & presentation tools, fundraising equipment, vehicles & transportation, etc. Explain how these technologies help you maintain quality standards and improve the efficiency of your business operations.

Adding these components to your operations plan will help you lay out your business operations, which will eventually help you manage your business effectively.

7. Management Team

The management team section provides an overview of your charity business’s management team. This section should provide a detailed description of each manager’s experience and qualifications, as well as their responsibilities and roles.

• Founders/CEO: Mention the founders and CEO of your charity company, and describe their roles and responsibilities in successfully running the business.
• Key managers: Introduce your management and key members of your team, and explain their roles and responsibilities. It should include, key executives(e.g. COO, CMO.), senior management, and other department managers (e.g. operations manager, finance manager, customer services manager.) involved in the charity business operations, including their education, professional background, and any relevant experience in the industry.
• Organizational structure: Explain the organizational structure of your management team. Include the reporting line and decision-making hierarchy.
• Compensation Plan: Describe your compensation plan for the management and staff. Include their salaries, incentives, and other benefits.
• Advisors/Consultants: Mentioning advisors or consultants in your business plans adds credibility to your business idea. So, if you have any advisors or consultants, include them with their names and brief information consisting of roles and years of experience.

This section should describe the key personnel for your charity, highlighting how you have the perfect team to succeed.

8. Financial Plan

Your financial plan section should provide a summary of your business’s financial projections for the first few years. Here are some key elements to include in your financial plan:

• Profit & loss statement: Describe details such as projected revenue, operational costs, and service costs in your projected profit and loss statemen t. Make sure to include your business’s expected net profit or loss.
• Cash flow statement: The cash flow for the first few years of your operation should be estimated and described in this section. This may include billing invoices, payment receipts, loan payments, and any other cash flow statements.
• Balance Sheet: Create a projected balance sheet documenting your charity business’s assets, liabilities, and equity.
• Break-even point: Determine and mention your business’s break-even point—the point at which your business costs and revenue will be equal. This exercise will help you understand how much revenue you need to generate to sustain or be profitable.
• Financing Needs: Calculate costs associated with starting a charity business, and estimate your financing needs and how much capital you need to raise to operate your business. Be specific about your short-term and long-term financing requirements, such as investment capital or loans.

Be realistic with your financial projections, and make sure you offer relevant information and evidence to support your estimates.

9. Appendix

The appendix section of your plan should include any additional information supporting your business plan’s main content, such as market research, legal documentation, financial statements, and other relevant information.

• Add a table of contents for the appendix section to help readers easily find specific information or sections.
• In addition to your financial statements, provide additional financial documents like tax returns, a list of assets within the business, credit history, and more. These statements must be the latest and offer financial projections for at least the first three or five years of business operations.
• Provide data derived from market research, including stats about the industry, user demographics, and industry trends.
• Include any legal documents such as permits, licenses, and contracts.
• Include any additional documentation related to your business plan, such as product brochures, marketing materials, operational procedures, etc.

Use clear headings and labels for each section of the appendix so that readers can easily find the necessary information.

Remember, the appendix section of your charity business plan should only include relevant and important information supporting your plan’s main content.

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This sample charity business plan will provide an idea for writing a successful charity plan, including all the essential components of your business.

After this, if you still need clarification about writing an investment-ready business plan to impress your audience, download our charity business plan pdf .

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you need a charity business plan.

A business plan is an essential tool for anyone looking to start or run a successful charity business. It helps to get clarity in your business, secures funding, and identifies potential challenges while starting and growing your business.

Overall, a well-written plan can help you make informed decisions, which can contribute to the long-term success of your charity company.

How to get funding for your charity business?

There are several ways to get funding for your charity business, but self-funding is one of the most efficient and speedy funding options. Other options for funding are:

• Bank loan – You may apply for a loan in government or private banks.
• Small Business Administration (SBA) loan – SBA loans and schemes are available at affordable interest rates, so check the eligibility criteria before applying for it.
• Crowdfunding – The process of supporting a project or business by getting a lot of people to invest in your business, usually online.
• Angel investors – Getting funds from angel investors is one of the most sought startup options.

Apart from all these options, there are small business grants available, check for the same in your location and you can apply for it.

Where to find business plan writers for your charity business?

There are many business plan writers available, but no one knows your business and ideas better than you, so we recommend you write your charity business plan and outline your vision as you have in your mind.

What is the easiest way to write your charity business plan?

A lot of research is necessary for writing a business plan, but you can write your plan most efficiently with the help of any charity business plan example and edit it as per your need. You can also quickly finish your plan in just a few hours or less with the help of our business plan software .

How do I write a good market analysis in a charity business plan?

Market analysis is one of the key components of your business plan that requires deep research and a thorough understanding of your industry. We can categorize the process of writing a good market analysis section into the following steps:

• Stating the objective of your market analysis—e.g., investor funding.
• Industry study—market size, growth potential, market trends, etc.
• Identifying target market—based on user behavior and demographics.
• Analyzing direct and indirect competitors.
• Calculating market share—understanding TAM, SAM, and SOM.
• Knowing regulations and restrictions
• Organizing data and writing the first draft.

Writing a marketing analysis section can be overwhelming, but using ChatGPT for market research can make things easier.

How detailed should the financial projections be in my charity business plan?

The level of detail of the financial projections of your charity business may vary considering various business aspects like direct and indirect competition, pricing, and operational efficiency. However, your financial projections must be comprehensive enough to demonstrate a complete view of your financial performance.

Generally, the statements included in a business plan offer financial projections for at least the first three or five years of business operations.

What key components should a charity business plan include?

The following are the key components your charity business plan must include:

• Executive summary
• Business Overview
• Market Analysis
• Products and services
• Sales and marketing strategies
• Operations plan
• Management team
• Financial plan

Can a good charity business plan help me secure funding?

Indeed. A well-crafted charity business will help your investors better understand your business domain, market trends, strategies, business financials, and growth potential—helping them make better financial decisions.

So, if you have a profitable and investable business, a comprehensive business plan can certainly help you secure your business funding.

What's the importance of a marketing strategy in a charity business plan?

Marketing strategy is a key component of your charity business plan. Whether it is about achieving certain business goals or helping your investors understand your plan to maximize their return on investment—an impactful marketing strategy is the way to do it!

Here are a few pointers to help you understand the importance of having an impactful marketing strategy:

• It provides your business an edge over your competitors.
• It helps investors better understand your business and growth potential.
• It helps you develop products with the best profit potential.
• It helps you set accurate pricing for your products or services.

About the Author

Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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A business plan is a crucial document that is required for several purposes. Charity organizations too produce such documents while starting a new venture, to secure fundings and also for expansion projects and more. The document provides elaborate details on the goals and objectives of the organization or a project as well as the budget plan and the estimated outcomes of the undertaking. We have prepared our professional plan templates to help you make such important documents conveniently.

Step 1: Provide the Executive Summary

Step 2: give an introduction to the organization, step 3: define your market and operational plans, step 4: provide summary of your finances, step 5: understand the risks.

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Charity Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Charity Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 500 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their charity companies. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a great business plan.

In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write a charity business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What is a Charity Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your charity business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for a Charity

If you’re looking to start a charity business or grow your existing charity company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your charity business to improve your chances of success. Your charity business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for Charity Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a charity business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and major donors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan (hand it to them in person or email to them as a PDF file) and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Donations and bank loans are the most common funding paths for charity companies.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to Write a Business Plan for a Charity Business

If you want to start a charity business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. The guide and sample below details the necessary information for how to write each essential component of your charity business plan.

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of charity business you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a charity business that you would like to grow, or are you operating more than one charity business?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.

• Give a brief overview of the charity business industry.
• Discuss the type of charity business you are operating.
• Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers.
• Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team.
• Offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Overview

In your company overview, you will detail the type of charity business you are operating.

For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of charity businesses:

• Public charity business: A charity business that is defined by the Internal Revenue Service as a “public service support,” is one that benefits the public at large. This may include chambers of commerce, labor unions, and certain types of insurance companies. If a charity business fits within the specifications set by the IRS, the charity is considered a 501c3 entity, and receives preferential tax treatment.
• Private charity business: By far, the majority of charities fall within the category of “private charities,” which can be identified as serving a specific group of people. This may include philanthropic foundations, churches or synagogues, and other clubs or associations that serve via a privately-funded means. If a private charity business fits within the specifications set by the IRS, the charity is considered a 501c3 entity and receives preferential tax treatment.

In addition to explaining the type of charity business you will operate, the company overview needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of people served, the number of charitable outcomes, reaching X number of geographic locations, etc.
• Your legal business structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the charity business industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the charity business industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies market trends.

The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your charity business business plan:

• How big is the charity business industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential target market for your charity business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Donor Analysis

The donor analysis section of your charity business plan must detail the individuals or business entities who donate or those you expect to donate to your charitable business.

The following are examples of donor segments: individuals, families, foundations and corporations.

As you can imagine, the donor segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of charity business you operate. Clearly, individuals would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.

Try to break out your target donors in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential donors you seek.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target donors. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your donors. Ideally you can speak with a sample of your target donors before writing your plan to better understand their needs.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other charity businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that donors may contribute to that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes service-related charitable endeavors, private foundations, and organizations that serve specific communities, etc. You need to mention direct competition, as well.

For each direct competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as

• What types of donors do they solicit?
• What type of charity business are they?
• What is their donation model (cash, assets, estate-wealth)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the donors’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ donors what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide recognition for all your donors?
• Will you offer premium products or services for your top-tier donors?
• Will you provide consistent communication with your donors?
• Will you offer directorships or preferential placement for your donors?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a charity business plan, your marketing strategy should include the following:

Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of charity company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you provide food for the homeless population? Will you improve the neighborhood park? Will you invest in artwork on behalf of your charity to support the art world?

Value : Document the specific value your charity provides and how that compares to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the products and/or services you offer and their respective values.

Place : Place refers to the site of your charity company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your charity business located in an affluent neighborhood, a warehouse, a standalone office, or is it purely online? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for the donors who contribute and the services you provide.

Promotions : The final part of your charity business marketing plan is where you will document how you will drive potential donors and charitable recipients to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertise in local papers, radio stations and/or magazines
• Reach out to websites
• Distribute flyers
• Engage in email marketing
• Advertise on social media platforms
• Improve the SEO (search engine optimization) on your website for targeted keywords

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your charity business, including answering calls, planning and providing fund-raising events or campaigns, correspondence with donors and charitable recipients, and maintaining records of acts of service.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your Xth charity recipient, or when you hope to reach $X in donations. It could also be when you expect to expand your charity business to a new city.

Management Team

To demonstrate your charity business’ potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing charity businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing a charity business or top-tier donors who are regularly involved in your charity business.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your donation and gift income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement

An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. In a charity business, profits can be made through sales; however, the majority of income is received from donor gifts and activity. Your income statement will show several avenues of income as a result. It will demonstrate your receipts and then subtract your costs to show the IRS the activity of your 501c3 organization.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you hold 5 donor events each year, and/or offer acts of service weekly? And will your charity business grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets

Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your charity business, this will not give you an immediate return on the investment. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you maintain your charity business for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement

Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can generate gifts or assets, but run out of money and go bankrupt.

When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a charity business business:

• Cost of equipment and office supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Other start-up expenses (if you’re a new business) like legal expenses, permits, computer software, and equipment

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your list of top-tier donors, or examples of how your charity has changed lives or communities for the better.

Writing a business plan for your charity business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will understand the charity business industry, your competition, and your donors. You will develop a marketing strategy and will understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful charity business.

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In this article, we’ve rounded up the most useful list of nonprofit business plan templates, all free to download in Word, PDF, and Excel formats.

Included on this page, you’ll find a one-page nonprofit business plan template , a fill-in-the-blank nonprofit business plan template , a startup nonprofit business planning timeline template , and more. Plus, we provide helpful tips for creating your nonprofit business plan .

Nonprofit Business Plan Template

Use this customizable nonprofit business plan template to organize your nonprofit organization’s mission and goals and convey them to stakeholders. This template includes space for information about your nonprofit’s background, objectives, management team, program offerings, market analysis, promotional activities, funding sources, fundraising methods, and much more. 

Download Nonprofit Business Plan Template

One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Template

This one-page nonprofit business plan template has a simple and scannable design to outline the key details of your organization’s strategy. This template includes space to detail your mission, vision, and purpose statements, as well as the problems you aim to solve in your community, the people who benefit from your program offerings, your key marketing activities, your financial goals, and more.

Download One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Template

Excel | Word | PDF

For additional resources, including an example of a one-page business plan , visit “ One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide .”

Fill-In-the-Blank Nonprofit Business Plan Template

Use this fill-in-the-blank template as the basis for building a thorough business plan for a nonprofit organization. This template includes space to describe your organization’s background, purpose, and main objectives, as well as key personnel, program and service offerings, market analysis, promotional activities, fundraising methods, and more. 

Download Fill-In-the-Blank Nonprofit Business Plan Template

For additional resources that cater to a wide variety of organizations, visit “ Free Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Templates .”

Startup Nonprofit Business Planning Template with Timeline

Use this business planning template to organize and schedule key activities for your business. Fill in the cells according to the due dates, and color-code the cells by phase, owner, or category to provide a visual timeline of progress.

Download Startup Nonprofit Business Planning Template with Timeline

Excel | Smartsheet

Nonprofit Business Plan Template for Youth Program

Use this template as a foundation for building a powerful and attractive nonprofit business plan for youth programs and services. This template has all the core components of a nonprofit business plan. It includes room to detail the organization’s background, management team key personnel, current and future youth program offerings, promotional activities, operations plan, financial statements, and much more.

Download Nonprofit Business Plan Template for Youth Program

Word | PDF  | Google Doc

Sample Nonprofit Business Plan Outline Template

You can customize this sample nonprofit business plan outline to fit the specific needs of your organization. To ensure that you don’t miss any essential details, use this outline to help you prepare and organize the elements of your plan before filling in each section.

Download Sample Nonprofit Business Plan Outline Template

Nonprofit Startup Business Planning Checklist Template

Use this customizable business planning checklist as the basis for outlining the necessary steps to get your nonprofit organization up and running. You can customize this checklist to fit your individual needs. It includes essential steps, such as conducting a SWOT analysis , fulfilling the research requirements specific to your state, conducting a risk assessment , defining roles and responsibilities, creating a portal for board members, and other tasks to keep your plan on track.

Download Nonprofit Startup Business Planning Checklist Template

Tips to Create Your Nonprofit Business Plan

Your nonprofit business plan should provide your donors, volunteers, and other key stakeholders with a clear picture of your overarching mission and objectives. Below, we share our top tips for ensuring that your plan is attractive and thorough.

• Develop a Strategy First: You must aim before you fire if you want to be effective. In other words, develop a strategic plan for your nonprofit in order to provide your team with direction and a roadmap before you build your business plan.
• Save Time with a Template: No need to start from scratch when you can use a customizable nonprofit business plan template to get started. (Download one of the options above.)
• Start with What You Have: With the exception of completing the executive summary, which you must do last, you aren’t obligated to fill in each section of the plan in order. Use the information you have on hand to begin filling in the various parts of your business plan, then conduct additional research to fill in the gaps.
• Ensure Your Information Is Credible: Back up all the details in your plan with reputable sources that stakeholders can easily reference.
• Be Realistic: Use realistic assumptions and numbers in your financial statements and forecasts. Avoid the use of overly lofty or low-lying projections, so stakeholders feel more confident about your plan. 
• Strive for Scannability: Keep each section clear and concise. Use bullet points where appropriate, and avoid large walls of text. 
• Use Visuals: Add tables, charts, and other graphics to draw the eye and support key points in the plan.
• Be Consistent: Keep the voice and formatting (e.g., font style and size) consistent throughout the plan to maintain a sense of continuity.
• Stay True to Your Brand: Make sure that the tone, colors, and overall style of the business plan are a true reflection of your organization’s brand.
• Proofread Before Distribution: Prior to distributing the plan to stakeholders, have a colleague proofread the rough version to check for errors and ensure that the plan is polished.
• Don’t Set It and Forget It: You should treat your nonprofit business plan as a living document that you need to review and update on a regular basis — as objectives change and your organization grows.
• Use an Effective Collaboration Tool: Use an online tool to accomplish the following: collaborate with key personnel on all components of the business plan; enable version control for all documents; and keep resources in one accessible place.

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The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

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Example CIC or Charity Business Plan Template

Cic and charity business plan template.

Your charity business plan is what you aim to achieve in the coming year.  However, this example template will work just as well for other plans, and your CIC or other not for profit organisation.

The only right way to create a charity business plan is whatever way works for your charity and you can use this simple 3 step process as a template to create your CIC or charity business plan.  That could be anything from a one page business plan in Word, for a very small CIC, to a substantial, detailed business plan for a large UK charity.

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Step 1 - charity business plan goals & objectives.

Your objectives (or goals) are what you must achieve to deliver your charity business plan.  These can either be long term (strategic plan)) or nearer term, such as annual business, fundraising and project plans.

Charity Business Plan Objectives - Strategic Plan

Often strategic and business, or other annual plans can be seen as quite separate, but these are not.  Next year's business plan, is Year 1 of your strategy.  Looking at your strategic plan objectives, what must you achieve in the coming year to deliver these?

Charity Business Plan Objectives - Operations

You also need to ensure that your charity continues to be well run and delivers the high quality support you want it to.  Look at your operations, such as delivering services for your beneficiaries, fundraising, finance, people and other activities.  What are the key activities and what must you achieve in these areas areas?

STEP 2 - CHARITY BUSINESS PLAN KPIs (TARGETS)

Trying to measure everything would take a huge amount of time and most won't really matter.  Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the key targets you use to measure and monitor your progress to achieving your business plan objectives.

Measuring Charity KPIs

There are really only 3 things you might want to measure - quality, quantity, time and cost.  And, these are interlinked.  The public sector is particularly prone to what are called perverse outcomes.  Focussing on a single KPI measure, to the exclusion of the others that nobody thought about, but which turn out to be really important.

• Buying higher quality fresh food and/or preparing food from scratch, rather than buying in pre-prepared.
• Preparing more meals and/or extending opening times.
• Using pre-prepared ingredients and buying more equipment/expanding kitchen capacity.

You don't need to measure all of them for everything, if the other factors aren't important, or won't change.  I've provided some examples of planning KPIs below.

How To Set Charity Business Plan KPIs

In order to ensure you deliver your charity business plan objectives, you need to be able to measure these and monitor progress.

The first step is to set KPIs for each objective using SMART – that is your KPIs are S imple, M easurable, A chievable, T imely and R elevant.

You then need to decide who will be responsible for delivering and reporting these, any milestones in terms of when activities will be delivered and how and when these will be reported.

Once you've set your business plan KPIs, ask yourself if these are the key issues you need to monitor and manage to deliver your business plan objective. Are there any KPIs you don't need and is there anything missing that you do?  And does each KPI meet the SMART criteria above?

STEP 3 - IMPLEMENTING YOU CHARITY BUSINESS PLAN

The Charity Excellence Data Store tracks sector resilience and a key theme is a lack of realism in charity planning.  Ambition is a hallmark of the sector, but 'Aspirational' is the flip side of planning to fail, if that involves committing people and resources to business plans that aren't achievable.  Here are my ideas to help you ensure that your business plan will succeed.

Charity Business Plan Reality Checklist

For your charity business plan to work, you need to be able to confidently answer 'yes' to each of the questions below.  That's about making an objective assessment of each.

• Our charity business plan includes everything that's important to us that we want to achieve
• Our business plan objectives and targets are realistic and achievable
• We will have enough people, with the necessary skills and experience to deliver our plan
• The key risks have been identified and quantified
• We have taken adequate steps to manage these, to ensure no risk remains unacceptably high
• There is adequate funding in our budget to resource all of our business plan objectives
• Our fundraising targets are realistic and we are confident that these should be achieved
• For example, not launching a project until funding is secured, or having plans to scale back activity
• Our business plan has been communicated to everyone who needs to know about it and it is simple, clear and will be understood by them
• The information reported focusses on the key issues and will enable us to take action in good time, if we need to

Congratulations, you have created a simple, clear and effective business plan.  If you are unsure about any of the above, revisit your plan and make any changes you need to.

Communicating Your Charity Business Plan And Making It A Success

The World is full of detailed and beautifully crafted business plans sitting on shelves gathering dust.  In any, except the smallest of charities, it is your staff and volunteers who will deliver your business plan, so they need to know what you want them to do and feel motivated to do so.  If you e mail a big complicated business plan to everyone, it may not be read and, if it is, may not mean much to its readers.

You need to communicate your plan in a simple, clear way that engages them. It also needs to be reflected in any other plans or procedures. For example, your budget and risk plans, any project plans and, for larger charities, appraisal objectives and departmental work plans.

For reporting, sometimes reports are too 'fluffy' or nor easily understandable, or far too long and complicated.  Often these can be simply rubber stamped by boards.  Ensure that your reports meet your needs, focus on the key issues, are clear and understandable for trustees, and acted upon.  Here's the  Charity Excellence guide  to making reports more effective and less work.

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