PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE PROJECT OUTLINE TO FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE REQUIREMENTS
AND EXPECTATIONS. PLEASE PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO PAGES 11-12 AS THIS IS WHERE YOU WILL
GAIN A GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF THE IN-COURSE POLICIES AND OVERALL ASSIGNMENT
CRITERIA.
GROUP PROJECT: BUILDING YOUR OWN NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
PART 1 – Due February 9th, 2024
WHO WE ARE
Name of Organization
 Create a name for your organization.
Mission
 Create a mission statement for your organization
Values
 Create five core values for your organization
LEGAL STRUCTURE
Based on Chapter 5 – The Legal Context of Nonprofit Organizations describe your legal structure.
Provide justification as to why you chose the legal structure and how these decisions will help further
your mission and values.
½ page single spaced
GOVERNANCE
Board Membership
 Based on the type of NPO you have established, describe who you feel would be appropriate
members of your board and why. Do you need a lawyer or an accountant? Would you want a
community member or other professionals?
Board Recruitment, Orientation, and Training
 Describe your process of recruitment, orientation, and on-going training of your board of directors.
Board Governance Model
 In Chapter 3 – Managing the Governance Function, the author describes three roles that board
members may play. Describe what role will your board of directors will play and why.
Board Decision Making Model
 In Chapter 3 – Managing the Governance Function, the author describes board decision-making
models. Describe what decision making model your board of directors will play and why.
Board Meeting Effectiveness
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How will you ensure you have effective board meetings?
1.5 pages single spaced
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND PROGRAM SCOPE
Organizational Structure
 Describe whether your organization will be a Mechanistic or an Organic structure. Provide four
clear reasons why the particular model you picked is best suited for your nonprofit organization.
½ page single spaced
Service Delivery Philosophy
 Develop a written philosophy that will guide service delivery practice. Your philosophy should
address your approach to ensuring physical, social, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual wellbeing
of the people you are serving. It should also include a statement around their own rights.
½ page single spaced
Overall Description of Program or Service (you must provide at least two different services)
 Program #1 Description
o Specific services or programs being offered
o Who you will serve
o Where you will be located
o Frequency of services including days of the week
 Program #2 Description
o Specific services or programs being offered
o Who you will serve
o Where you will be located
o Frequency of services including days of the week
1 page single spaced
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Strategic planning is the road map that guides the organization to achieve its mission. It is a high-level
plan that considers the internal and environmental conditions that translates into useful planning
information that aids in setting goal and priorities for the organization.
The first part of strategic planning is to conduct a SWOT analysis. Page 320 of the current text provides
a sample of a SWOT that shows the analysis in a table format. Review the section of your text describing
the “External and Internal Environmental Analysis” and create a SWOT analysis for your organization
presented in a table format as shown below. Ensure critical thought as you put this together and an
understanding of what your potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are.
SWOT Analysis
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Internal Strengths
Internal Weaknesses
External Opportunities
External Threats
GROUP PROJECT: BUILDING YOUR OWN NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
PART 2 – Due March 8th 2024
Now that you have created your SWOT analysis, state four strategic goals of your organization. These
will be more defined and concrete and based on your SWOT analysis. Use the following table to
complete your strategic plan.
Strategic Plan
Goal #1: INSERT GOAL HERE
Actions to Take
Responsibility
Timeframe
Priority
Financial Considerations
Define and determine
actions to take to meet
this goal
Who is
responsible
When do
you want to
achieve this
High,
Medium,
or Low
How much money is
required?
Actions to Take
Responsibility
Timeframe
Priority
Financial Considerations
Define and determine
actions to take to meet
this goal
Who is
responsible
When do
you want to
achieve this
High,
Medium,
or Low
How much money is
required?
Goal #2: INSERT GOAL HERE
Goal #3: INSERT GOAL HERE
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Actions to Take
Responsibility
Timeframe
Priority
Financial Considerations
Define and determine
actions to take to meet
this goal
Who is
responsible
When do
you want to
achieve this
High,
Medium,
or Low
How much money is
required?
Actions to Take
Responsibility
Timeframe
Priority
Financial Considerations
Define and determine
actions to take to meet
this goal
Who is
responsible
When do
you want to
achieve this
High,
Medium,
or Low
How much money is
required?
Goal #4: INSERT GOAL HERE
LEADERSHIP AND STAFF STRUCTURE






Describe your leadership structure to demonstrate the value of accountability and responsibility
to your mission, values, and purpose.
How will you offer programs or services? Through volunteers or a paid workforce?
Support the leadership and staff structure with a narrative outlining the positions and lines of
authority. Also, document this through an organizational chart.
Competencies of the Executive Director
o Chapter 4 focuses on executive level leadership in non-profit organizations. What leadership
qualities (choose five) will you be seeking in your new Executive Director and why are these
important to the mission of your organization?
Chapter 4 describes 3 areas of Executive Director effectiveness:
1. Effectiveness with the Board of Directors
2. Effectiveness with the staff and volunteers
3. Effectiveness with the community.
o Provide four strategies in each area of effectiveness that will ensure organizational successful.
Justify why these strategies are important.
Chapter 4 describes seven challenges that Executive Directors face in their roles. Choose three
challenges, put yourself in the shoes of the Executive Director, and describe how these challenges
will be confronted to optimize the opportunity for success.
1 page single spaced
CULTURAL COMPETENCY, EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION

How will your organization demonstrate an awareness of, respect for, and attention to the
diversity of the people you serve in your organization? What four strategies will you pursue to
ensure cultural competency, equity, diversity, and inclusion is a high priority for your organization?
4
½ page single spaced
ESTABLISHING GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS




Chapter 6 – Government and Community Relations reminds us “change is constant in the world of
nonprofit organizations, particularly in their relations with other organizations and public.” Think
about the environment in which your nonprofit organization is situated. How will you position
your organization to survive and thrive in the inconstant social, economic, and political
environment? Consider and integrate concepts of Figure 1: Four Dimensions of Change Facing
Canadian Nonprofit Organizations when answering the question.
When thinking about your nonprofit organization, how would you ensure positive relations with
government, policy makers, and funders to ensure the sustainability of your organization?
Consider the emerging new accountability requirements when answering this question. What
challenges do you feel you will face when developing and maintaining relationships with
government?
When thinking about your organization what types of partnerships/collaborations will you
establish in your community? This could be with other nonprofit organizations, service sector,
health, businesses, etc. Identify two partnership/collaborations that you could establish and how
this would specifically benefit the population being served by your organization?
How would you use the traditional or mainstream media to benefit your organization?
1 page single spaced
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING STRATEGY
Now more than ever, nonprofit organizations need to have a solid public relations and marketing
strategy. By raising awareness about the important role they have in their communities, nonprofit
organization better position themselves for successful fundraising campaigns. Create a public relations
and marketing plan with three goals.
Public Relations and Marketing Strategy
Goal
Actions
Target Audience
Message Content
Mode of Delivery
RESOURCE AND FUND DEVELOPMENT
Resource and Fund Development Planning and Approach
 Thinking about the key fundraising principles, what challenges do you feel your organization will
face when developing your fundraising activities? What role will the Executive Director have in the
fundraising and philanthropic activities? Explain why the role the Executive Director will play is
important for resource and fund development.
 Your text describes an integrated development program for fundraising. There are three main
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categories. Choose one of the categories and describe a fundraising activity that you feel would
benefit your organization. Describe the specifics of this activity and the types of donors would you
focus on.
How would your donors know you are accountable with their donated money?
How will you know your fundraising has been successful?
1 page single spaced
Create one fundraiser and develop a fundraising plan based on the table below:
Fundraiser: Insert the name of the event here.
Description: Provide a short description of your fundraiser here including your targeted donors.
Actions to Take
Responsibility
Timeframe
Action 1: Define and
determine actions to take
to meet this goal
Who is
responsible
When do you
want to
achieve this
Targeted
Donors
Anticipated Results
Who do we
want to
target in this
activity
Action 2: Define and
determine actions to take
to meet this goal
Action 3: Define and
determine actions to take
to meet this goal
Action 4: Define and
determine actions to take
to meet this goal
Anticipated challenges: Describe any anticipated challenges you may experience with this
fundraiser.
Strategies to mitigate challenges: Describe strategies to mitigate challenges you described above.
Strategies for donor retention:
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GROUP PROJECT: BUILDING YOUR OWN NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
PART 3 – Due March 22nd, 2024
PERFORMANCE PLANNING, MEASURING IMPACT, AND EVALUATION
Evaluation of your nonprofit organization is going to take some thought and some research. We know
that to stay on track strategically and tactically, organizations must monitor and assess performance.
Additionally, funders are increasingly seeking to support programs that make a difference to the people
and communities they serve.
Description of Performance Planning, Measuring Impact, and Evaluation
In thinking about evaluating your organization, describe a system that includes the following:
 Who will be responsible for ensuring that your organization has a robust evaluation system?
 How will you collect your data?
 Who will you collect your data from? (You may want to think about collecting data from various
stakeholders – who are they?)
 How often will you collect data and how will you analyze your data?
 How will you share your results and with whom will you share them with? Why is sharing your
results important?
 What will you do to ensure there is a process for quality improvement?
½ page single spaced
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
As a newly formed nonprofit organization, technology will be a considerable investment and planning
for its current and future use will be very important. Describe your vision for technology in your
organization as a preamble to support the following technology plan. When analyzing your technology
needs create a technology plan with four goals for your organization. Use the following table:
Technology Plan
Goal
Insert Goal #1
Insert Goal #2
Insert Goal #3
Insert Goal #4
Actions to achieve the goal
Budget Required
Timeline
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RISK MANAGEMENT


Murray (2015) states, “when a non-profit is new it is also usually quite small and must concern
itself with basic survival.” Based on what you have read in Chapters 1-3 what will you do to ensure
your NPO survives these early stages of development? Consider your strengths and challenges
when thinking about your NPO’s survival.
Risk management is essential in business operations. Risk is a chance of something happening that
will have an impact on the achievement of the stated outcomes of an organization. Risks may be
viewed as both an opportunity and a threat and is measured in terms of frequency of occurrence
and severity of the consequences with a rating provided for each. Risk management is a key
element your organization’s governance structure and internal control system. Risk management
requires planning. Based on your organization, identify any areas of risk that you may need to
manage.

Step 1: Review the risk topics in the following table.
nonprofit organizations:
o Board of Directors
o Staff
o Technology
o Financial
o Reputation/Profile
These are very common risk topics in
Step 2: Analyze and discuss each area of risk and for each risk topic area complete the following
table:
Risk Planning Discussion/Analysis
Risk Topic: Board of Directors
What is the nature this area of risk.
What could a risk be in this area?
What is the likelihood of an adverse
event happening in this risk area?
If an event were to occur, how would
it affect the organization?
What factors cause or contribute to
increased risk exposure in this area?
Risk Topic: Staff
What is the nature this area of risk.
What could a risk be in this area?
What is the likelihood of an adverse
event happening in this risk area?
If an event were to occur, how would
it affect the organization?
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What factors cause or contribute to
increased risk exposure in this area?
Risk Topic: Technology
What is the nature this area of risk.
What could a risk be in this area?
What is the likelihood of an adverse
event happening in this risk area?
If an event were to occur, how would
it affect the organization?
What factors cause or contribute to
increased risk exposure in this area?
Risk Topic: Financial
What is the nature this area of risk.
What could a risk be in this area?
What is the likelihood of an adverse
event happening in this risk area?
If an event were to occur, how would
it affect the organization?
What factors cause or contribute to
increased risk exposure in this area?
Risk Topic: Reputation/Profile
What is the nature this area of risk.
What could a risk be in this area?
What is the likelihood of an adverse
event happening?
If an event were to occur, how would
it impact the organization
Are there certain areas of the
organization or programming where
the risk is greater?
What factors cause or contribute to
increased risk exposure?


Step 3: Create your Risk Management Plan by completing the following table:
See notes following the table for points of clarification.
Risk Management Plan
Risk Topic
BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
Identification of
Loss Exposure
Analysis of Loss
Exposure
PF/L S–
Implemented Actions to Take
to Reduce Risk
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STAFF
PF/L S-
TECHNOLOGY
PF/L S-
FINANCIAL
PF/L S-
REPUTATION/
PROFILE
PF/L S-



Identification of Loss Exposure: This is where you are specific as to what the loss actually is. For
example if “Transportation” was a Risk Topic, an Identification of Loss Exposure” could be vehicular
accident causing harm to a staff person on persons served. Choose one specific loss for each Risk
Topic.
Analysis of Loss Exposure including Priority (P), Frequency/Likelihood (F/L), and Severity/How
bad if it occurs (S): In this section, you will determine ratings based on the scale of low, medium,
and high. For example Priority (P) might be rated Low, Frequency or Likelihood (F/L) of it
happening could also be low but the Severity or how bad it could be if it does occur is High.
Implemented Actions to Take to Reduce Risk: Create one specific action to help reduce, manage,
or eliminate the risk.
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTING
Internal Control System
 Describe your internal control system.
Fraud Prevention and Fraud Detection
 Describe your process for preventing fraud in your organization. What actions would you take if
fraud was suspected and/or detected?
Financial Reporting
 Describe your financial reporting system for your organization.
Budgeting Process
 Describe the budgeting process for the operating budget only. How will you ensure you have a
well-prepared budget and who will be involved in this process?
1 page single spaced
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GROUP PROJECT: BUILDING YOUR OWN NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
PART 4 – Due April 5th, 2024
Final Written Project and Presentation
IN-COURSE POLICIES AS PER SYLLABUS
All assignments are mandatory and must be submitted on time in the dropbox folder. Assignments
not submitted on time will receive a 20% automatic deduction. Assignments submitted after three
days will be marked as a zero.
Group assignments: Equal participation amongst all students in the group. Students not equally
participating will receive an adjusted grade to reflect their contributions. STUDENTS WILL NOT BE
ALLOWED TO SUBMIT INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS.
All materials referenced in assignments must be scholarly sources. ChatGPT or other AI intelligence
is not considered a scholarly source and cannot be used. Any indication of work being generated by
ChatGPT or other AI intelligence will be referred to the Committee responsible for Academic
Integrity.
FINAL SUBMISSION - PROJECT FORMAT (30%)
 Include a title page, a table of contents, and required headings outlined throughout the project
outline.
 The page requirements are for the written portions only. The tables required do not count as the
page numbers.
 Academically written with business minded thought, creativity, and insight.
 Use at least four academic/scholarly outside sources (one must be your text book)
 Use APA for any outside resources used.
 Paper must demonstrate teamwork and equal participation.
 Submit your Project as a team into the dropbox assigned to your team.
 Adhere to the NLC Honesty Policy
PROJECT PRESENTATION (10%)
 Develop 15 minute (maximum) recorded PowerPoint presentation to showcase your nonprofit
organization.
 Presentation will include only the highlights of each section.
 Presentation must demonstrate teamwork and equal participation.
 Submit your recorded PowerPoint Presentation as a team into the dropbox assigned to your team.
INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT (3 Bonus Marks)
 Individually, complete your individual/team assessment and submit to the INDIVIDUAL
ASSESSMENT FOLDER in the dropbox.
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
The Individual Assessment Forms will circulated after the final project and presentation is
completed. These are confidential and will not be shared with your teammates.
Up to 3 bonus marks will be awarded for completed assessments.
TOTAL MARKS - WORTH 40%
 Project Part 1 - Due February 9th: Feedback provided on the progress to date and areas of
improvement. Submissions not made on time will be subject to 2.5 points deducted off the final
project mark.
 Project Part 2 – March 8th: Feedback provided on the progress to date and areas of improvement.
Submissions not made on time will be subject to 2.5 points deducted off the final project mark.
 Project Part 3 – March 22nd: Feedback provided on the progress to date and areas of improvement.
Submissions not made on time will be subject to 2.5 points deducted off the final project mark.
 Note that submissions for part 1, 2, and 3 are for feedback purposes only. This is to help you be
successful with your final submission.
 Project Part 4 - (Final Project Submission and Recorded Presentation) April 5th: Final Written
Project is worth 30% and Presentation is worth 10%
 Individual Assessment - Due April 7th: Up to 3 bonus marks will be awarded for completed
assessments. The Individual Assessment will be posted following the final submission.
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