Discover the Best Event Planner Invoice Example for NPOs

Event planner invoice example for NPOs

what we're going to be discussing are several elements of a non-profit business plan and why they might be important for your success and starting a nonprofit organization hi I'm Eric Nasalroad I am the COO here at Aplos software here at aplos I am an expert in entrepreneurship I've written a textbook on the subject and I help people start businesses and nonprofits I have a passion for helping people start organizations nonprofit and social good companies and I'm part owner of several social good companies and believer in philanthropy and so it's been a lot of time helping other organizations be better at what they do and giving to those organizations in many different ways so a non-profit business plan is essentially a document that helps a non-profit entrepreneur put their vision on paper so that one they can record all their ideas in a systematic way but two they can share that vision with other people so that other people would understand what they're trying to accomplish I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what a business plan is and what it's supposed to do there's many people think you need a business plan to go get money from a bank which doesn't usually happen especially with a startup most of the time if you need a business plan to get money from a bank for your nonprofit or for your regular business it's after you've been in business for a few years so an initial like you're starting a non-profit why would you do a business plan it's it's really so you can gather all of your thoughts and be clear about what it is that you're trying to accomplish it has nothing to do with anyone else except for you it's really about making sure that you've thought through all the things that you need to think through so that as you're launching this you know this organization that you've thought of all the details so that when you actually physically go file your paperwork with the state or with your city or you start providing services for people you're not caught off guard by something that you may not have thought of depending on the organization there can be several elements in a non-profit business plan one essential piece that's specific to nonprofits is some sort of fundraising plan whether that's a series of events and you're gonna have golf tournament fundraisers or car washes or you're gonna rely on volunteers and you're just coordinating events for providing services the fundraising aspect of a non-profit has to be thought out how are you gonna pay your own salary for example or are you going to start a non-profit as a side thing and you have your regular day job and then hopefully if it grows big enough then do you pay yourself so a fundraising plan would be in there a service plan or some kind of something that identifies what your cause is and how you try to solve it so from a planning standpoint the cause really is the problem that you're trying to solve so maybe it's homelessness and you want to fight homelessness so what you would do is you would identify you know how many homeless people are in your area what are their needs how specifically do you plan to help because there could be several nonprofits one may just want to feed homeless people another may want to provide housing for homeless people so your solution to that problem is your specific cause so there would be some kind of outline of how it is that you want to attack the cause or help the cause and and solve for those needs so those would be specific and you'd want those in there you would also have some sort of financial pro formas projections it's not because you want to go get a loan or anything like that it's simply so that you make sure your bills are paid in the future so if you have your fundraising plan that's essentially your income and then whatever your cause that you want to serve you're gonna have things that you serve those cosmic so maybe you're running events that cost money maybe you're providing meals for almost people that cost money so you just want to make sure that you've planned for that coming in when are you going to need it and make sure we have enough of that and so a financial plan would be part of that some nonprofits will include a marketing plan that's just really it's more about launching the nonprofit to the community it's for the benefit of those who would receive care and it's also for the benefit of people who would want to come alongside that nonprofit and maybe be donors maybe be fund raisers maybe but be volunteers that believe in that cause so some kind of marketing plan would be relevant to most nonprofit business plans and it doesn't have to be a paid for advertising plan it's it could literally be I need to go print a bunch of flyers or I need to have all of my friends over for dinner and tell them about what I want to do and it can start that simple but it could be if we're going bigger to be even more dynamic than that typically most people want to help most people are really good when it comes to the idea generation with helping and starting a non-profit and we love bouncing ideas off of friends and this is all a very important piece of starting a non-profit but you we almost want to make sure we go to that next level of writing it down thinking how does my marketing plan a line with my fundraising plan or my fundraising events at the right time of year for when I'm going to need the money to actually provide for this cause so it just helps us to see it as a whole from a you know top level view maybe 30,000 foot view to make sure everything works together because one-off things sound great and often are fine but sometimes when we have this thing going over here and this thing going over here and we haven't thought of them together they're not gonna work out and so having that plan will help us to have more success and that you know means serving more people really you