How to write a nonprofit business plan [6 steps]

With fundraising conditions changing rapidly, nonprofits must be strategic to keep pace. A strong nonprofit business plan helps your organization account for emerging risks, evolving donor expectations, and long-term sustainability while giving donors, funders, and stakeholders confidence in your ability to adapt.

It can also give your team a clear framework to address:

• Economic uncertainty
• Tight budgets
• Changing donor behaviors
• Recent legislation impacting corporate giving
• The rise of hybrid fundraising models
• The use of AI tools

In this guide, we’ll show you how to write a business plan for your nonprofit using our trusted six-step framework, which includes a free business plan template you can copy and paste to get started.

What is a nonprofit business plan?

A nonprofit business plan gives stakeholders a clear view of your organization’s current finances, operations, goals, and fundraising strategy. It’s often paired with a 3–5-year strategic plan that explains how your nonprofit will advance its mission, engage stakeholders, reach goals, and adapt as needs change. Together, these plans help keep internal and external stakeholders aligned.

Think of your nonprofit business plan as a roadmap that outlines the following for your organization:

• Current environment: Market conditions, industry trends, competitors, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges
• Goals: Objectives your organization aims to achieve over a defined period, including strategic, operational, and financial targets
• Programs: Key initiatives, projects, products, or services you’ll implement to achieve your organization’s goals Operations: Processes, resources, staffing, technology, and day-to-day activities required to deliver products or services effectively
• Marketing: Strategies and tactics for reaching target audiences, building awareness, generating demand, and supporting growth
• Impact: Measurable outcomes, benefits, or value created for customers, stakeholders, communities, or other intended beneficiaries
• Finances: Revenue sources, budget, expenses, financial projections, funding requirements, and measures of financial sustainability

Remember, your nonprofit business plan isn’t a one-and-done document. It’s a living, breathing record to guide your actions that you should reference and update regularly.

Why do nonprofits need business plans?

Research suggests that organizations that use structured business plans are twice as likely to succeed and grow 30% faster than those without.

Your business plan will help you:

• Outline your goals and objectives to achieve your mission.
• Understand your current standing and target market.
• Identify roadblocks before you run into them.
• Determine how you’ll confront challenges and capitalize on opportunities.
• Build awareness for your cause.
• Increase revenue.
• Attract board members, volunteers, and supporters.
• Inspire your team to reach milestones.
• Stay accountable.
• Generate clear financial projections.
• Respond faster to shifts in donor behavior.

Nonprofit business planning trends

Now is the time to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency, including in creating and maintaining your nonprofit business plan, from drafting proposals and analyzing benchmark data to creating financial projections and scenario modeling.

AI tools for strategic planning

AI is changing the landscape of nonprofit business planning.

Some examples include:

• Drafting and brainstorming: Use ChatGPT, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot to draft mission statements, program descriptions, or executive summaries.
• Scenario modeling and financial projections: Use AI-powered forecasting features inside tools like Causal, Jirav, or Excel Copilot to model multiple fundraising outcomes.
• Data analysis and donor insights: Use Microsoft Copilot to integrate with your existing Microsoft 365 apps or try built-in analytics in customer relationship management software like Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack with Einstein AI and Bloomerang AI to surface giving trends.

You don’t need to use all these AI tools at once. Pick one or two to start with so you can learn how they work. In fact, there’s no rush to incorporate any AI tools at all unless your organization understands how and where to use them. Identify your operational needs and fill them with AI tools as it makes sense. Overwhelming your team with AI can cause more stress than it’s worth when done without a thoughtful approach.

Just remember that when employing AI solutions, it’s critical to develop an AI transparency and ethics policy that establishes clear boundaries for data privacy, using human oversight, and prohibiting the unauthorized use of your organization’s data.

Pro tip: Use ChatGPT to draft your executive summary by providing key information about your nonprofit. Then, refine and personalize the output.

The 6-step framework for writing your nonprofit business plan

The following six-step framework for drafting or refreshing your nonprofit business plan includes a simple, easy-to-use template to organize all your information in one convenient location.

Step 1: Identify your “why”

Before you start, you must be clear about why your nonprofit exists, what your purpose is, and what story you want to communicate about it.

Here are questions to consider:

• What are your nonprofit’s goals and mission?
• Why does it matter? Why have you invested your time, passion, and energy into this cause?
• What happens if you reach your goals? What happens if you don’t?

A clearly articulated “why” is not only about standing out to donors but also keeping your team, board, and volunteers oriented around the same North Star when priorities shift.

Step 2: Decide how you’ll get from point A to point B

A clear business plan helps your nonprofit evolve. There’s often more than one way to reach your goals.

Use these questions to help you find your best path:

• How do you feel about where your organization is now?
• What makes you most excited about the future?
• What are you most worried about?
• What’s your ideal vision for where your organization is in 3–5 years?

Once you’ve figured out your point A (where you are) and point B (where you’d like to be), think about how you’ll make the journey.

Consider:

• What marketing strategies do you plan to use?
• How will you raise funds?
• Who do you need to bring to the team to make it happen?

Consider how emerging technologies, like AI, automation, and data analytics, can help you bridge the gap between point A and point B. For example, tools like GoFundMe Pro’s Intelligent Ask Amounts provide personalized ask amounts, gift frequencies, and nudges based on each donor and your chosen goals, turning your strategic intent into measurable results.

Step 3: Describe your target audience

Your nonprofit likely has a few distinct donor audiences, each with unique needs, preferences, and engagement pathways. They deserve a plan tailored to them, which means taking the time to define your strategies for each cohort.

First, what audience segments do you need to consider? Take the time to name these groups and consider what drives them to act, including:

• First-time donors: Awareness-building campaigns, compelling storytelling, social media outreach, peer-to-peer fundraising, and low-barrier donation opportunities
• Repeat one-time donors: Personalized follow-up communications, impact reports, donor appreciation efforts, and targeted appeals
• Recurring donors: Monthly giving programs, exclusive updates, donor recognition, and automated donation renewals
• Major donors: Relationship-based fundraising, one-on-one cultivation, personalized proposals, and exclusive events aligned with donor interests
• Gen Z donors: Digital-first campaigns, short-form video content, influencer partnerships, crowdfunding, and mobile-friendly giving experiences
• Volunteers: Volunteer recruitment campaigns, community engagement opportunities, mission-driven storytelling, and skills-based service programs
• Partners: Corporate sponsorships, strategic alliances, cause-marketing campaigns, employee giving programs, and in-kind support opportunities

If you lack information about any of these specific groups, create a plan that includes surveys, one-on-one conversations, focus groups, and observations to learn more about them.

You may also want to go beyond broad categories to define donor personas. This will help you segment supporters by motivation, giving capacity, and preferred channels to help you build specific strategies to target them.

Step 4: Find your roadblocks

Even the best laid plans encounter roadblocks. That’s why it’s critical to acknowledge the challenges you face now as well as prepare for those that could occur down the road.

Use these questions to help assess potential roadblocks:

• What’s hindering progress today? This might be finding a qualified board member, falling short of funding goals, or finding a way to distribute resources efficiently to your nonprofit’s recipients.
• What problems do you foresee months or even years from now? This might be retaining donor interest, losing key partnerships, or finding the right hires.
• What’s stopping your nonprofit from reaching its goals? This could include external factors, like tight budgets, legislative changes, or shifting donor behaviors, or internal ones, like volunteer recruitment challenges, incorporating technology, and donor turnover.

Address where you stand now and where you can reasonably expect to go. This is also the time to start brainstorming solutions, such as organizing a playbook for how you’d overcome a challenge or consulting with other organizations on what worked for them.

Step 5: Outline your fundraising plan

Fundraising is at the heart of every nonprofit’s impact. Whether choosing nonprofit software for the first time or rethinking your current provider, this list of essential questions to ask is a great place to start.

Today, giving is increasingly happening online, especially among Gen Z, who are more likely to discover causes through social media and platforms like GoFundMe than other generations. The strongest business plans balance these digital entry points—like community-led fundraisers, social-first campaigns, recurring giving, and peer-to-peer—with traditional tactics—like galas and direct mail—so you can appeal to a wide range of demographics.

So what fundraising ideas will bring in the most support? Consider the following:

• Tried-and-true fundraising programs: Direct mail appeals, annual giving campaigns, membership drives, major gifts programs, planned giving, and capital campaigns
• Recurring giving: Monthly giving clubs, sustainer programs, automatic payroll deductions, and membership-based donations
• Peer-to-peer giving: Birthday fundraisers, personal fundraising pages, charity challenges, walkathons, team fundraising, and ambassador campaigns
• Events: Galas, live or silent auctions, golf tournaments, charity runs, benefit concerts, community festivals, and virtual fundraising events
• Partnership-leveraged fundraising: Corporate sponsorships, workplace giving programs, cause-marketing campaigns, matching gifts, grants, and strategic alliances
• Social media and digital fundraising: Email fundraising, crowdfunding, social media appeals, text-to-give campaigns, livestream fundraising, and influencer partnerships

For more inspiration, check out GoFundMe Pro’s 100 fundraising event ideas for nonprofits and charities.

Step 6: Outline your nonprofit business plan

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to outline your nonprofit business plan. Copy and paste this template and add your responses to each section.

1. Executive summary: Introduce your nonprofit business plan and provide an overview of everything to follow. We recommend doing this part last, after gaining clarity from each of the other sections.
   • Borrow ideas from Step 1: Identify your “why” to drive home the mission and importance of your nonprofit. This is where you sell your nonprofit.
   • Pro tip: Highlight your organization’s unique value proposition, including how you adapt to changing donor expectations. Reference current trends or societal impacts to illustrate your plan is up to date.
2. Nonprofit description: Describe what your nonprofit does, your current situation, and your mission statement and goals.
   • Include who you help, where you are now, where you aspire to be, who your target audience is, and what your unique opportunities are.
   • Pro tip: Include information about your digital presence, technology infrastructure, and commitment to equity and inclusion.
3. Need analysis (aka market analysis): Provide research and data to support your nonprofit’s existence. Underscore the problem your nonprofit addresses for the community.
   • Explain the problem and how your nonprofit provides a solution. Use data to underline the market need to support your nonprofit’s existence and secure funding.
   • Pro tip: Use data visualization tools and AI-powered research to strengthen your need analysis and make it more compelling to funders.
4. Products, programs, and services: Explain how your nonprofit addresses the problems or opportunities presented in the need analysis.
   • Outline what products, services, and programs you provide, along with pricing and costs, if applicable.
   • Pro tip: Consider how technology and digital delivery might expand your program reach or improve accessibility. Include any technology vendors you might need to partner with to offer solutions. This nonprofit software evaluation guide will help you choose the right fundraising technology to support your mission and team.
5. Operational plan: Explain the day-to-day operations of your nonprofit and spotlight the people who make it happen.
   • Describe how you work with partners, suppliers, and volunteers to execute events, marketing, donor communications, legal operations, fundraising campaigns, and more. Spotlight the people behind your organization with names and descriptions, such as the management team, board members, and donors.
   • Pro tip: Include information about your technology infrastructure, data management practices, and commitment to staff well-being and equity.
6. Marketing plan: Outline the campaigns, outreach events, and initiatives you coordinate to reach beneficiaries, donors, and volunteers.
   • Include channels you currently use and explore methods you’d like to invest in if you had additional staff or funding. Consider social media, nonprofit email marketing, SMS, webinars, landing pages, video, and events.
   • Pro tip: Consider emerging social channels, such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Use this guide to content marketing for modern nonprofits to create content for these channels. You may also want to include how you’ll use AI-powered personalization to tailor subject lines, ask amounts, and landing pages to individual donor behaviors.
7. Impact plan: Describe the impact you’d like your organization to have and include the impact you’ve already had.
   • Outline your measurable accomplishments and state your goals for future transformation. Include concrete numbers wherever possible. For example, “We want to feed 1,000 struggling families.”
   • Pro tip: Use data analytics and impact measurement tools to track progress and communicate results to stakeholders.
8. Financial plan: Demonstrate your plan for raising money, forecasted expenses, salaries, tech stack, office costs, and how you’ll spend contributions.
   • Describe your current financial situation and projections, funding sources, fundraising plan, funding gaps, and spending plan. Include plans for recurring giving or diversifying revenue, if applicable.
   • Pro tip: Include scenario planning for different fundraising outcomes and consider how recurring giving and hybrid revenue models might provide additional sources of revenue.

Keep in mind, business plans vary. Most nonprofit business plans run between 10 and 30 pages, but you can also use your 1–2-page executive summary for certain audiences. Similarly, not all nonprofit business plan formats are the same. Use these sample business plans from Prosper Strategies, listed by organization type, to find an example that resonates.

Put your nonprofit business plan into action

Now, it’s time to act. Whether you need to raise funds, expand your reach, host a virtual event, or grow your recurring giving program, GoFundMe Pro is here to help you execute your nonprofit business plan and fundraise effectively.

Schedule a call with our team to get a hands-on walk-through of our platform. You’ll see firsthand how GoFundMe Pro can help you fundraise, attract donors, gain supporters, and streamline all your nonprofit’s processes to achieve your goals.

Copy editor: Ayanna Julien