Scenario Planning for Nonprofits During Uncertain Times

Our sister site www.ScenarioPlans.com talked about the importance of scenario planning for nonprofits: Scenario Planning with Nonprofits. Of course it is great to do scenario planning every few years so the plans (and contingency plans) are already developed, but most organizations don’t do formal scenario planning, at best, they do worst, best and most-likely case analysis once disaster has arrived.

Look at the ScenarioPlans.com blog on Scenario Planning with Nonprofits.

Useful tools at Bridgespan: Nonprofit Scenario Planning During a Crisis. (Image is from Bridgespan.) Just knowing what the worst case looks like enabled the executives to have a comfort level on how to move forward. Notice how Bridgespan a table with best case on the left. Maybe cut executive salaries by 15%. In the worst case, layoffs and cut executive salaries by 30%.

Scenario Planning for Nonprofits should be more than worst, best and most-likely case. But no mater what you call the scenario planning tool, it is very helpful during times of uncertainty.

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