Every sustainable organization is built on a sound business model.
The business model of a nonprofit or coalition consists of multiple components, which together create value for the community and are what sustain the entity over time.
While several tools can be used to define an organization’s business model, Atrómitos recommends using a Business Model Canvas. A canvas is a tool for facilitating a group discussion on a topic. In this case, the topic is the organization’s business model. Using a canvas allows you to capture what may seem like abstract ideas and organize them into specified categories. It will enable you to identify and test assumptions.
A key benefit of defining your business model is to avoid mission creep. All nonprofits and coalitions struggle with this because we all want to do everything we can to improve our communities. But understanding what you are good at – what brings value – can help mitigate mission creep. Avoiding mission creep is really important. With mission creep, you find yourself in difficult waters. Not enough resources, not enough of the right resources, difficulty obtaining funding, and poor performance lead to reputational harm.
To help nonprofits through this process, we leveraged existing canvases and combined and modified them to meet the full spectrum of nonprofits’ needs in identifying a business model. We provide the template and instructions for its use here. If you would like the template without the instructions, you can find that here.
