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A Powerful Nonprofit Planning Tool 3

This time I just want to offer a few more questions related to nonprofit planning. These questions hark back to that table I presented in the first two posts in this series. Last time I promised more questions and a concrete example would be coming in future posts.

This post will add a few generic questions on dynamism, or rate of change. See if you can come up with variations on these questions that work for your nonprofit.

Cultural dynamism – The rate of changes in attitudes and lifestyles and beliefs can create opportunities or threats. How much change is there in your organization’s social environment?

Demographic dynamism – How much is the local population changing? What opportunities or threats do you see?

Ecological dynamism – Change in the environment seems to be even more esoteric and hard to relate to everyday nonprofit life. That’s not necessarily so.

Economic dynamism – Are changes in the local economy creating “islands of opportunity” to raise money or connect with corporate sponsors? How much change is there in the distribution of income?

Legal dynamism – How much are laws, regulations, and rules changing? What opportunities or threats do those changes suggest?

Political dynamism – How much is the political landscape changing? Are changing political attitudes or possible changes in legislation creating either opportunities and threats?

Technological dynamism – What trends in (name a type of technology) could we exploit? What new tools or techniques are emerging? Remember that technology can be hardware, software, or a process that helps us do something new or just better.

I’ll say more about complexity next time, then capacity, then a concrete example of using this stuff for planning.

Stay tuned.

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