The Non-Profit Market

501(c) (3) is a tax status… not a mindset!

A successful non-profit integrates best business practices into its day-to-day operations. Ensuring the sustainability of an organization requires the same tools and skill set(s) as are required in managing and building a successful company.

The starting point for any business or non-profit organization is to evaluate its current operational environment. In order to make changes that will positively affect your non-profit organization, you need a snapshot of your organization today. This will provide a starting point for developing strategy, implementing change, and measuring results. Here are some basic questions to ask as an organization.

What do you do well? What do you do poorly? How are you viewed by donors? Previous donors? How are you viewed by the constituency you serve? How effective are your staff, volunteers, and board members in their respective roles? What motivates people to help your organization? Are you wasting funds on ineffective operations or outdated technology? Do you need to invest in new staff or seek other professional help? Have you established a succession plan to protect the organization going forward?

Over the years, Stratenomics, Inc. has provided support to the established non-profits nationally and internationally, to help build stable and sustainable organizations. The global environment, political and economic strategies, and increased sophistication on the part of donors and grant makers poses significant challenges and opportunities for non-profit organizations.

This is where the experience and strengths of Stratenomics, Inc. can help make the difference. Our non-profit related services include:

• Organizational audits to evaluate the ability to deliver services and programs, support future needs and maintain a healthy and effective environment for all stakeholders.
• Strategic and action planning to help build a roadmap of opportunity and stability and ensure that the mission and purpose of the organization are being met and that encourages and supports transparency and differentiation.
• Organizational development designed to address critical capacity building needs both at the staff and board levels and to create the necessary tools, documentation and best practices that will position the organization to effectively respond to present and future needs.
• Sustainability review and strategy development. The difference between this and fundraising is that sustainability looks at the whole of an organization; its financial tracking and planning, its programmatic and operational plans and its current capacity and approach to funding.

A Unique Partnership

We recognize that because non-profit organizations are organic, it is important to work within the context of the imperatives of the markets the organization serves. Understanding the relationship, between, and interdependency of, the stakeholders of the organization is the first step toward building a healthy and responsive environment. The next step is to help the organization develop the tools needed to support a realistic and realizable plan and qualified and appropriate infrastructure including staff complement and technological capabilities.