Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template: An Annotated Sample for a $300K Organization

In the fictional sample plan below, one year-one objective reads: “Close the Tuesday evening tutoring site and move both volunteers to Saturday, where attendance is three times higher.” That line belongs in a strategic plan. “Expand youth services” does not, because nobody reading it can tell what changes on Monday.

If your board wants a plan by spring, this page gives you the whole template, filled in for a fictional youth literacy nonprofit with a $300,000 budget and four staff. It is one piece of a wider guide to strategy for nonprofits.

Which Parts Are Required, and Which Are Optional?

This template treats seven parts as required, and each one has a size limit. Mission and vision take two sentences. The situation summary takes half a page. Goals, the stop-doing list, objectives, measures and review dates fill the rest. A values page, a full environmental scan and a five-year budget model are optional and belong in an appendix.

1. Mission and vision. One sentence each.
2. Situation summary. A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), with every line tied to a decision.
3. Three strategic goals. What will be different in three years.
4. Stop-doing list. The programs or commitments you will end to make room.
5. Year-one objectives. One owner, a due quarter and one measure each.
6. Measures. An output and an outcome for every goal.
7. Review calendar. Four dated quarterly reviews, set before the board votes.

For the steps that produce this document, see the guide to nonprofit strategic planning. A plan for your own growth as a leader is separate: use a leadership development plan template.

What Does a Filled-In Strategic Plan Look Like?

Below is a complete sample nonprofit strategic plan for a fictional youth literacy organization: a $300,000 budget, four staff, a main site and one satellite site. Each part shows the plan text first, then a note on why it is written that way. Copy the text and replace each line with your own.

Part 1: Mission and Vision

Sample. Mission: “We help children in kindergarten through third grade on the east side read at grade level by the end of third grade.” Vision: “Every child on the east side reads well enough to learn anything.”

Why it is written this way. The mission is narrow enough for a board member to use it to turn down an adult literacy class. The vision fits in a volunteer’s memory.

Part 2: Situation Summary

Sample. Strength: Saturday tutoring draws three times the attendance of the Tuesday evening site. Weakness: one foundation grant pays 55 percent of the budget. Opportunity: two elementary schools have asked for tutoring during the school day. Threat: the satellite site’s lease ends next June.

Why it is written this way. Each line points at a decision. A SWOT line that changes no decision is decoration, so cut it.

Part 3: Three Strategic Goals

1. By year three, every child enrolled for a full school year gains at least one grade level in reading from fall to spring.
2. By year three, all tutoring runs at the Saturday site and partner schools, where attendance is strongest.
3. No single funder pays more than 40 percent of the budget by year three.

Why it is written this way. For this sample, three goals for four staff is already a full load. The work to reach each goal lives in the objectives.

Part 4: Stop-Doing List

Sample. Sunset the satellite summer camp after this summer. Stop applying for grants under $5,000 that require separate reporting.

Why it is written this way. Many published templates skip this part, yet it makes the goals possible. The camp and the small grants take staff hours that goal two needs.

Part 5: Year-One Objectives

Why it is written this way. Every objective serves a numbered goal and has one owner and a due quarter. The Center for Nonprofits at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith names the usual gap in plans: goals with “no metrics or responsible person tied to them.”

Part 6: Measures

Sample. Goal 1 output: tutoring sessions held each month. Goal 1 outcome: the share of full-year children who gain one grade level in reading from the fall to the spring assessment. Goal 2 output: tutoring hours at the Saturday and school-day sites. Goal 2 outcome: average attendance per session. Goal 3 output: proposals sent to new funders. Goal 3 outcome: the largest funder’s share of the budget.

Why it is written this way. Outputs are easy to count, so board reports drift toward them. Pairing each output with an outcome keeps the review on whether children read better.

Part 7: Review Calendar

Sample. Quarterly reviews at the board meetings on the second Tuesday of January, April, July and October, 45 minutes each. The executive director sends the one-page summary a week ahead, with each objective marked green, yellow or red.

Why it is written this way. The dates go on the calendar before the board approves the plan. A plan with no review date waits for someone to remember it.

Strategy is mostly deciding what to stop.

Who Drafts the Plan, and Who Approves It?

The executive director drafts most of the plan, and the board decides the mission, the goals and the stop-doing list, then approves the whole document. The Foraker Group draws the line plainly: strategic planning and annual priorities are the board’s responsibility, and other planning is staff work.

• Mission and vision: the executive director and board chair draft, and the full board approves.
• Situation summary: staff draft it with board input.
• Goals and the stop-doing list: drafted together at a board session, decided by the board.
• Objectives, owners and measures: the executive director and staff decide, and the board sees them.
• Review calendar: the executive director proposes dates, and the board chair schedules them.

When the board and the executive director disagree about direction, no template settles it. Work on the board and executive director partnership first.

How Long Should a Nonprofit Strategic Plan Be?

A nonprofit strategic plan should be short enough that board members read it before the meeting. The sample above fills about three pages, and the version people use fits on one: the three goals, the stop-doing list, the measures and the review dates. The Foraker Group says the plan it develops typically fits on one page.

Build the one-page version last: the goals at the top, then the stop-doing list, one line per measure and the review dates at the bottom. It goes into every board packet, and everything else goes in an appendix.

Why Do Strategic Plans Stall After Approval?

Plans stall in the first year after approval, when the first review slips, the goals outnumber the people carrying them and nothing was stopped to make room. The template’s limits are the fix: three goals, a stop-doing list, one owner per objective and review dates written in before the board votes.

Strategic planning is one of the needs leaders name when they apply to CNPC for coaching, and what they ask for is help implementing plans instead of shelving them.

Run a month-six check at the second quarterly review. As a rule of thumb, treat the plan as stalled if any two of these are true:

• Nobody can name the three goals without opening the document.
• The first review moved and still has no new date.
• An objective lost its owner when someone left or a role changed.
• The stop-doing items are still running past their end dates.

Restart the plan where it stands: set the next review date, reassign owners and cut one objective. Then test its size with a rough judgment call for a small organization: if carrying the plan takes more than about five hours of the executive director’s month, it is probably too big. Those hours will not appear on their own, so plan on protecting strategic time from daily operations.

The plan that gets reviewed in month six is the one that works.

A plan without anyone holding the leader to it is a wish list. In the Targeted Coaching phase of CNPC’s PATH model, the six sessions are where an executive director builds the accountability structure that keeps dates like these.

When Is a Template Not Enough?

A template is not enough when the organization faces a merger, a founder’s departure, the loss of a major funder or deep board conflict about direction. Those situations call for a skilled facilitator or a consultant who brings analysis, and it is better to know that before anyone books a retreat.

CNPC tells applicants when a consultant fits better than a coach. For a side-by-side view, read about deciding between a coach and a consultant.

The coach helps the executive director think, decide and follow through. CNPC coaches do not write plans or run retreats.

Should You Plan Alone or With a Coach?

Start alone this week: copy the sample, replace the mission line with yours and write the date of your first quarterly review. You can finish the whole plan from this template. A coach helps when you want a thinking partner to decide what to stop and to hold the review dates.

CNPC coaches are volunteers from outside your organization, with no seat on your board or staff, which makes it easier to say out loud which goal you would drop first. CNPC offers six sessions of nonprofit executive coaching for $300 to $600, depending on your organization’s operating expenses, because volunteer coaches donate their time.

Read more about what coaching adds while you carry a plan, or Apply Now.

Frequently Asked Questions