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A nonprofit's strategy determines whether the organization will sink or swim. Nonetheless, nonprofit leaders are often unable or unwilling to plan in the short-term to achieve long-lasting social change.
This course will help you develop successful strategies to achieve your organization's goals and make strides towards meaningful impact. Using the social problem of homelessness as a real-world example, you will learn how to undertake the basic elements of strategy: defining the problem, identifying the needs and interests of beneficiaries, designing a theory of change and implementation plan, and establishing assessment criteria. With this foundation, you will be able to develop strategies that will ensure long-term impact for your own organizations — rather than just the illusion of results.
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Module 1: Define the Problem
Clarify the problem that you want to solve
Module 2: Identify Beneficiaries' Needs and Interests
Identify your beneficaries and consider how their needs should inform your understanding of the problem
Module 3: Causes of the Problem and Approaches to Solving It
Assess different approaches to solving the problem after you have identified its causes
Module 4: Theory of Change and Planning to Implement
Define the intended ultimate outcome for solving your problem and build a series of causal links to identify how you will get there
Module 5: Changing Beneficiaries’ Behavior and Anticipating Failure
Identify barriers to changing behaviors and conduct a basic pre-mortem of your strategy to anticipate and plan for risks and barriers
Module 6: Preparing for Feedback
Specify how your organization will evaluate its effectiveness
Module 7: Program Evaluation
Review how to determine whether your strategy caused its intended outcomes
