I found this interesting presentation that explains it in a simple way and will like to share with you. Enjoy it and share your thoughts in the comments box below.

1. Begin by going over your mission statement. This is the outline for where you are going, and should lead you to the logical conclusion of what your ideal outcome is.

2. The next step is to do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. This analysis will have a different focus than any similar analyses you may have done for marketing and branding strategies. This focuses on the entire health of your organization. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses and take a close look at all influential external factors that may present an opportunity or threat to your success.

3. Make sense of the results. Understanding your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats helps you appreciate what is possible to achieve and will afford you the ability to develop attainable goals, which is the next step of the planning process. Develop goals, the strategies you will take to achieve those goals, and rewards for achieving the goals. Additionally, develop appropriate benchmarks so that you can stay on track with each goal. Each goal should be managed by a person or committee and should have a list of associated tasks that all have completion time-frames. The tasks do not have to be included in the strategic plan that you write, but they should be referenced and accessible.

4. Write your plan beginning with your mission statement. Be sure you define the time frame your plan is to cover. Include a summary of the plan for ease of use. Then attach the SWOT analysis and list your goals and the plan for attaining your goals. Include the responsible parties and expected completion times for each goal. It’s vital to create systems of accountability within your plan. One option for this is to request reports at monthly staff or board meetings. Another option is to have quarterly meetings to discuss your strategic plan. Celebrate the successes you have, and plan for corrective action when you fall short. The strategic plan is not a static document; it is ever-evolving.

5. Involve the team. The best strategic plans often are the ones that were the product of teamwork amongst key staff members and the board of directors. Both the board of directors and the staff will bring different ideas and values to the table, the combination of these which is what creates a well-rounded and effective strategic plan. Spend a few casual sessions brainstorming and planning; the results might just take your breath away.

Believe it or not, strategic planning can be fun. As dry as the topic may sound, this is the time to examine the health of your organization, determine what you are truly capable of and dream up an incredible future for yourselves. It is exciting, rewarding, and worth every effort.

What is it that you want to advocate for or against? Clearly define your intent to keep you on track. Describe who the advocacy will help, how it will help them, and why it is important to advocate for this group or cause. Then, determine who you are advocating to. Effective advocacy involves understanding your audience so you can present the appropriate information to them.

To inspire action from the information you give your audience, you’ll need to know how you want them to act, what or who is capable of motivating the audience, and what the best methods of delivery are. For example, the Rock the Vote campaign focused on getting young adults to get out and vote (desired action). They used forums such as MTV and social networking websites (methods of delivery) and featured famous musicians and actors as their spokespeople (people that would likely motivate many young adults). You may not be able to afford to hire Hollywood stars or pay for an ad spot on MTV, but you don’t need to. If you apply the same principles, you will have a similar effect.

That leads me into the next consideration. What are your resources for carrying out your advocacy mission? Determine the best use of resources, and don’t forget to include your network and volunteers in your list of resources. Resources are not always tangible; an excellent resource in budding nonprofits is often their enthusiasm and entrepreneurship. Conversely, consider what areas you may fall short in and decide how you will work within the framework you have.

Once you’ve defined your goal, your audience, and your resources, you are ready to lay out a plan of action. Your plan should include the methods of reaching your audience that were discussed earlier, and should work within the confines of your resources. Consider public speaking engagements and the use of technology as two major forums for propelling advocacy campaigns. Technology is especially effective; you can reach thousands of people in mere minutes for a very low cost. You can create viral campaigns that cover a variety of internet sites using nothing more than some human resources, photos, and possibly a web camera. Never under estimate the use of the internet because there are very few audiences that are not connected to it.

Evaluate your ongoing campaign. As with all of your other organizational activities, measuring and evaluating the success of your advocacy campaign will improve your efficacy for future campaigns. You can become a stronger champion of your cause by observing what works and what doesn’t in your respective advocacy operation.

Let’s face it: the battle to make this world a better place is ongoing. Our supporters look to us to lead the way, and armed with the right tools and tactics we can continue to motivate our audiences towards a more positive, prosperous future.

Unfortunately, by the time this problem becomes apparent it is often too late to correct and sometimes it leads to loss of donor funding. As you can see, managing your projects is vital – your projects are what represent you to the community you serve. There are several aspects to monitoring and evaluating your projects. By doing so, you will provide yourself with excellent fodder for your annual report.

Here are some things to look for:

What is the impact of your organization?
This might be difficult to measure, depending on the project. If there are any objective criteria you can use to determine this, then start there. You can also use stories and examples to see what impact the project has on its intended audience.

What are the goals and results?
Your project should have goals, objectives, and tasks that are being tracked. Seek monthly reports on the progress of these tasks to ensure that the project stays on track. Any persistent or recurring problems should be rectified decisively, to avoid further catastrophe. Sometimes this requires further involvement with the project to get it back on track; sometimes it means the project needs additional funding. At other times it could indicate that the project needs to go back to the drawing board.

How is it supporting your Mission?
Some organizations may get slightly off track by engaging a project that is similar to their cause, but is not directly in line with the mission of the organization. Read your mission statement and answer the question, “how does this project relate to our mission?” The answer should be definitive and if it is not, you might reconsider the project or reshape it to line up with your mission.

What do the finances look like?
Is the project healthy? What is the financial picture? Maintain oversight of the finances by requiring monthly reports and discussing them with the manager of the project. Be sure that you understand the scope of the report and what impact the finances are having on the project. As a measure of extra caution, project managers should be required to obtain authorization from the board of directors before spending a significant amount of money, and there should be a second party to all major financial transactions involving each project.

How is the Management?
Does the manager have a firm grasp of the project’s successes and weaknesses? Do they provide you detailed and accurate reports? Do they show up? Talk to other members of the project to find out how the project manager deals with the other people in the project. Evaluating the manager can go a long way towards evaluating the success of the project.

Evaluating and monitoring your projects can seem like babysitting and can certainly be taxing at times, but it has real rewards and offers you the opportunity to see some of the wonderful things your organization is doing within the community. Help your project managers develop into more efficient managers and you will see both the project and the manager flourish.

1. Be Knowledgeable

As the manager, you should understand the rules and regulations that govern your particular organization. If you don’t have the answers, you should have the resources for the answers, whether that consists of lawyers and accountants, manuals and books, or websites and phone numbers. Additionally, you should have a schedule of responsibilities for your organization. These may have been prescribed based on funds you received, or they may stem from local, state, or federal laws. As manager, it is up to you to ensure that these responsibilities are carried out by a trusted member of your organization.

2. Be Accountable

As a nonprofit you are subject to additional scrutiny at any time. It is less stressful and more productive to always remain accountable and transparent in everything you do. Create monthly reports for your projects, publish meeting minutes, and send information to your donors and volunteers about the health of your organization. Additionally, implement a system of checks and balances when it comes to your assets and finances. Being able to demonstrate that there are no opportunities for theft or misuse of your assets sends a strong message that you are a responsible organization. You should also develop methods of tracking the responsibilities, objectives and tasks of your organization and you should be able to measure your successes based on the results of your tracking. This is something to do over both short and long-term and helps you identify your strong points as well as any areas that need extra attention.

3. Be Financially Savvy

Financial management is one area that requires you to be business minded. Invest in the success of your organization. At the outset, you have to shell out money to develop and market your brand and your cause to a wide range of people. You might require some professional expertise to develop accounting systems and to ensure that your articles of incorporation are watertight; this is something worth paying for. Wooing excellent candidates for the board may cost a little bit of money as well, and so might other developmental factors that go into starting and managing a nonprofit. Focus on raising the funds you need to be highly successful so you are not forced into a position of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

4. Be Personable

Being a manager is hard work and it’s easy to forget about other people’s feelings when you are overloaded with tasks and responsibilities. Take the time to interact with the board of directors, staff members, and volunteers at your organization. Fostering a sense of community and team spirit is an effectual management tool that can go a long way towards the success of your organization. Aside from that, if things start to get difficult, the sense of community will help bolster morale.

It takes a lot to manage an organization effectively – whether that is a nonprofit organization or a for-profit business. Employing these three techniques will give you the foundation you need to succeed as a manager of a well-respected nonprofit organization.

Accomplishments. Highlight the most important successes of the year. Gloss over any financial successes; too much attention on financial achievements does not do anything to promote your organization. Write your achievements as if you were writing a resume or brochure. Use powerful words to emphasize the success.

Anecdotes & photos. These go hand in hand to demonstrate the human side of your organization. This makes donors and activists feel good about supporting your organization. Use anecdotes to tell personal stories of your organization helping someone or highlight a volunteer’s work with your nonprofit. Photos should be evocative of your cause and have a strong caption that denotes what the picture represents.

Financial summary. Many annual reports contain a summary of the financial picture in lieu of actual financial reports. Typically, donors do not want to review actual numbers; they want you to do that for them and then give them an easy to read summary. Half a page to a full page is generally sufficient to depict your financial standing. Depending on your requirements or audience, you may include actual financial statements, audit reports and your IRS form 990. In situations where the report is being submitted to regulatory agencies, the financial summary often accompanies the reports.

Donor list. Listing your donors is a courtesy to the donor and shows potential donors that you recognize the value of your donors, which offers them an extra incentive to invest in your organization. You may wish to organize your donor list by creating tiers of donors based on their contributions, or you may opt to list them alphabetically. The donor list is not always included in the annual report – this will depend on your organizational needs.

Call to action. Never overlook the opportunity to inject a call to arms into any materials you send to your community. Your report will have rallied people behind your organization and cause, and should have given them an excellent outlook on your group. Don’t let that opportunity slip by without offering them the ability to donate, volunteer, or take some other needed action.

Reports can feel daunting at the outset, but once you’ve created a template and have modified it to suit the needs of your audience you will find the process to be much easier. Besides that, it is a rewarding opportunity to reflect on all the things your organization accomplished, the people you helped, and the many people who continue to support you in your mission.

Prepare. Create a database of all volunteers, donors, and anyone else interested in your organization. When the time comes to mobilize, their email addresses will already be at your fingertips. In addition, network with organizations that have similar missions or causes that are related to yours. You can also network with corporations that work towards a similar goal. For example, if you are an environmental advocacy group then you might network with companies that promote environmentally-friendly products and services. That way, if it is necessary to quickly raise awareness about an important piece of legislation involving the environment, you already have a team ready to assist you.

Stay Fresh. Having a list of people to contact is fantastic, and you want to also use it to stay fresh in their minds. Rallying the troops is not a one-time deal; it is an ongoing process of continually drawing awareness to the cause. By maintaining contact with your network, you continue to educate your community about the issues and the impact those issues have. This makes it much easier to mobilize your network when necessary. Sending out an email newsletter once every 4-6 weeks is an effective way to accomplish this.

Plan. Know how you will reach your constituents when the time comes to rally them. This requires a good understanding of the people your community consists of and what motivates them. What is it about your cause that is important to them? You won’t be able to predict every possible situation where you will need to rally the masses, but it helps to have as much of a readiness plan as you can.

Mobilize. When the time comes, you are already half way there. People are interested in the issue; now they just need to know why they need to act. Ask them to be involved, provide them information about the issue and give them the tools with which to act. Make them feel as though their action is meaningful and important. Give them a call to action that explains why their action is necessary, and then make it easy for them. You can provide a draft letter to send to their congressman, direct them to an online donation center, or give them anything else that will empower them to take action. Mobilizing is not a single effort – it is a campaign and should be treated as such. Follow-up with key players in your network, send multiple emails, and do whatever else is necessary to persist in your mobilization efforts.

Some of the most monumental changes in our society started as grassroots movements that began with a small group of coordinated, organized and passionate people who were dedicated to their cause. It is not difficult to mobilize your community to stand up and fight against the issues when they are already well-informed and motivated to take action.

Mobilization can also be effectively carried out through social marketing. You can read our very informative post about social marketing and nonprofits here.

Here’s a simple 3 step process that works:

1. Research Your Target Audience. Start by examining your audience. Divide your audience into identifiable groups. This is called market segmentation. The purpose of doing this is to target each specific market in a way that appeals to the market. Market segmentation is typically done using demographic information: age, gender, race, socio-economic class, education, religion, etc. For example, you might have one target market of 18-24 year old women who are enrolled in college, and another that consists of 30-35 year old business professionals earning $30,000-$50,000 per year. These are obviously two very different markets, and the marketing approach will need to be handled independently.

2. Set Your Goals and Objectives. Once you’ve identified your different target markets you need to determine how you are going to gain the interest of those groups. Ask questions about the market: where are they? What are they interested in? What motivates them? How do we reach them? The answers to these questions will help you as you develop your plan. Next, determine what the goals are for each of your target groups. The goal is defined as whatever you hope to achieve with that group. Using the previous example, your goal for the business professionals may be to obtain their financial support.

For each goal, lay out objectives. The objectives are specific, concrete, and measurable outcomes that are in line with your goal. Referring back to the example, an objective might look like this: Within the next three years, solicit $100,000 in charitable donations from business professionals who are 30-35 years old.

3. Create a Strategy and Lay out Your Plans. Now that you’ve defined your objectives, you need to create a strategy for how you will accomplish them. Each objective will have a unique strategy, for which there will be a set of tasks by which you will execute your strategy. The sample objective is to solicit $100,000 in charitable donations from business professionals who are 30-35 years old. The strategy might be to advertise on the internet, send donation letters, and host a fundraising event. Each of these strategies would require a different set of tasks, such as creating the advertisement, drafting and mailing the letter, and organizing the fundraiser.

Notice throughout the examples that the process remains interlinked. Organizing a fundraiser for business professionals in the 30-35 year old age bracket serves to solicit $100,000 in charitable donations, which meets the goal of getting financial support from that target market. All of this is achieved by first knowing about that market, and understanding that the goal is aligned with the realities of the market.

Developing a marketing plan is a fascinating way to learn about your various audiences and what makes them tick. It also helps you delve deeper into your own organization and understand what you are specifically trying to achieve.

Using social marketing will give credence to your organization and its programs. So what is this social marketing? Social marketing is, simply, presenting your cause to your various audiences in such a way that they make the desired changes. It involves knowing your audience, knowing the modalities through which you will reach your audience, and what the current temperature of your audience is in relation to your cause.

Using social marketing is increasingly popular amongst nonprofits and for-profits alike. It is useful for fundraising and “friend-raising”, increasing awareness, and boosting the use of your programs. Social marketing is not simply about selling yourself, but about creating the change you want to create. Historically, social marketing has involved paid advertisements in newspapers, magazines, and on television and billboards for decades. Today, social marketing includes the internet which costs relativity little if nothing at all.

Here are 4 things you can do to create a social marketing campaign online:

1. Create a Website. Websites are essential to promote anything, and social causes are no exception. Websites don’t need to be fancy, but they should be neat, professional, and informative. The website will often be people’s first impression of you, so make it count. You might want to hire a freelance web designer to create your website – this will ensure that you have a professional site for people to visit.

2. Get Connected. Start a Facebook page – You can get one here. These are different than personal profiles, but they are indexed on Google searches, so your cause will start appearing twice on Google (presuming you have a website). Get a Twitter account and assign someone to tweet daily. There are applications which you can use to update your Twitter and Facebook statuses at the same time. If your audiences are MySpace users, you should also consider a MySpace page. Join LinkedIn and other professional networking sites to expand your audiences. Someone should be managing each of these accounts daily, answering emails, updating fans and readers, and promoting your organization.

3. Blog. Do this on your website or have an external blog that also feeds into your website. This blog should be updated on a regular basis, no less than once per week. Blogging serves two purposes: one is that it keeps adding fresh content to your website, which helps your search engine rankings and could potentially zip you to the top of Google searches that pertain to you; the second is that it keeps people engaged in your cause and organization. Find a writer that can manage your blog for you. Whether the writer is paid or a volunteer, they should be able to produce materials that readers enjoy.

4. Write. Piggybacking on the blog concept, many organizations produce articles to sell or post around the internet. The articles would be related to your organization and promote your cause, and would somehow be linked back to your organization. You can post these on many different article index sites (such as About.com or Suite101 or Wikipedia). Be sure that any articles you do create are well written and reference your organization with links back to you. Bonus: this will also help your search engine rankings on Google.

As you can see, there are a variety of creative and inexpensive ways to promote your cause to a large audience and create the changes that you desire to create. Whether it’s by visiting your website, seeing your tweets, or reading your blogs and articles, your target groups are sure to hear your message loud and clear.

Analyze. This is best accomplished using a SWOT model of analyzing your organization. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This model is one of the most common and basic tools in business planning and serves to help you hone in on who you really are as an organization. After defining your strengths and weaknesses, you must also consider external factors such as opportunities. These include new markets, potential target groups, new sources of funding, etc. Then there are threats. This can include new restrictive regulations, fierce competitors, or anything else that might inhibit your ability to succeed. Outline each of these areas and pinpoint what it is that you do better than anyone else. What is unique about your organization? This is going to be an important piece of the branding process, so write down your answers and set them aside.

Package. Now that you have an idea of what you are selling (that would be your organization and its unique aspects), you need to wrap it in a pretty box and put a bow on it so people want to take you off the shelf. Write a powerful sentence or two that conveys your organization’s distinctiveness. Create a logo that is complimentary to your statement.

Plan. After you’ve packaged yourself and developed the brand itself, you need to disseminate it to the right people in the right way. How are you going to accomplish this? Develop a marketing plan that identifies your target market and takes into consideration the most effective methods of reaching them. The plan should include a variety of options over a long period of time. Repetition in varied formats builds the impression into the minds of your audience and achieves recognition for your organization. Naturally, the strategy should take into consideration your resources for accomplishing your marketing plan.

Involve. The board of directors, staff members, and key volunteers should understand the brand and should be able to talk about the organization within the context of the brand. Part of any marketing approach includes reputation and word-of-mouth, and this is particularly true of a nonprofit organization. Key players should be involved in the development of the analysis, packaging, and planning processes – having different viewpoints will lend to a holistic brand concept and creative implementation.

Observe. How is your brand being perceived? It helps if you have a baseline to work from. If you are brand new organization, your baseline will be small. If you’re an existing organization, put some measures in place to lend to your observations. Are more people contacting you to volunteer? Perhaps more donations are flooding your mailbox these days, or local media outlets are contacting you to interview you about you and your mission. If you notice no change, or worse, a decline in interest, then simply return to the beginning and assess what you are doing that is better than everyone else, and why your target audience would want to support you – and then repeat the steps.

It may take a few adjustments and tweaks to develop a successful branding strategy, but part of the work is already done for you in the fact that you are a nonprofit corporation, and people are going to see you as being something worthy almost automatically. All you have to do is convince them that you are more worthy.