Contingency Planning for Nonprofits

The future is never a sure thing, but the current moment seems particularly fraught for many nonprofits. Let’s consider one of these scenarios: you’re navigating the yo-yo effect of COVID-era funding swings, the challenge of keeping pace with rising costs for labor and supplies, or the question of what comes next after a tectonic shift in the Federal government. These are among the good reasons that executive directors and their boards are losing sleep as they plan for 2025 and beyond.

The standard playbook for organizational leadership—adopting an annual budget and operating plan—won’t help you manage that uncertainty. Indeed, it may commit you to a fixed course regardless of shifting winds. What you need is a contingency plan.

How would you actually make a contingency plan? And how would you use it? In this interactive session, we will break the process down into clear and realistic steps. We will consider both how to build a sample financial model together as well as how to move beyond financial considerations to pressure testing programs. We will consider how your mission and values might serve as a guide to decision making or require a refresh as part of the planning process.

Key concepts include:
• Considering how to move beyond financial considerations to pressure testing programs
• Identifying to what degree your mission and values might serve as a guide to decision making or, require a refresh
• Key steps on building a sample financial model

Every participant will have access to Impact Catalysts’ financial modeling tool as a takeaway from the session. 

This workshop is generously sponsored by Webster Five.