Before Starting, Key Questions to Ask
- What does success look like?
- What are the goals to achieve this success (short and long term)
Executive Summary
This section should summarize the entire management plan and emphasize its high points, including:
- What is the vision for success?
- What is the purpose of this plan?
- How much money are we raising, in what form, and for what purposes?
- What is the potential of our product/service or the goal of the project?
- What are its significant features?
- What are our development milestones?
- What significant outcomes/impacts do we anticipate?
I. Management Plan Elements
- What are our organizational goals?
- What is the governance structure to meet those goals?
- Who set priorities?
- How are decisions made?
- Who makes budget decisions and at what level?
- Who manages staff? (hiring/releasing, work plans, goals, performance reviews)
- What is the incentive structure/model for achieving these goals? (academic vs. business model)
- Who’s accountable and to whom are they accountable?
- What are the products/services we will develop to meet those goals?
- What are the principal areas of operation or spheres of influence?
- How might these change and how would decisions be made?
- What are the specific applications and needs for our vision/service/tools?
- Who is our target audience and vehicle for meeting our goals?
- What is our distinctive competence (i.e., what are the chief factors that will account for our success?)?
- Why would donors give to us over all other like projects?
- What is our core competency?
- What are our strengths and weaknesses?
II. Sector Analysis
- Sector
- What nonprofit sector are we in? Can it be defined?
- How big is it now? How big will it be in five years? Ten years?
- What are its chief characteristics?
- Who are or will be the major constituents/stakeholders/influentials?
- What are or will be the major applications?
- What are the major trends in the sector?
- Target Needs
- What are the major sectors we will need to consider for adoption of the approach?
- For each major adoption, what are the following:
- Requirements by the customer/client/stakeholder/regulatory agency?
- Current ways of filling these requirements?
- Habits of the customer/user/stakeholder/funder?
- Impact on the customer of using our product/service/vision (e.g., how much will it save him per year; what return on investment will he get, will he have to change his way of doing things, buy other equipment, change work habits, or modify organizational structure?)
- Competition
- What organizations/institutions/efforts are we competing with or duplicating
efforts with? Are their strategic collaborations we can pursue? - How does NatCap compare with other similar efforts?
- How does our vision/product/service compare with others, especially through the eyes of our key donors and stakeholders?
- What is the “market share” of each existing competitors/potential collaborators? (e.g. Moore Foundation is supporting Costanza group; USFS supporting their own efforts)
- How best to partner with competitors to achieve goals more efficiently? Who best to partner with? How to make these decisions? Criteria?
- What organizations/institutions/efforts are we competing with or duplicating
- Reaction from specific prospective customers/stakeholders/decision makers/funders
- What prospective donors/customer/stakeholders have we talked to?
- What was their reaction to the vision and effort?
- Marketing/outreach activities
- What is our marketing/communications/outreach strategy?
- For fundraising
- For key influentials and decision makers
- For adoption of ecosystem service valuation into resource decision-making?
- What are our plans for
- Distribution and dissemination
- Collaboration
- Promotion
- Geographical distributio
- Demonstration site implementation
- Setting priorities among fundraising, research and development, testing and implementation, and marketing and communications activities?
- What is our marketing/communications/outreach strategy?
- Marketing and communications activities
- What level of marketing and communication effort will we have? How important will it be to achieving our goals?
- Who will be responsible for the marketing and communications of NatCap
- How to ensure key messages are adhered to
- Who will identify the target audiences for our approach?
- Stakeholders
- Decision makers
- Financiers
- Funders/donors
- How will we decide whom to contact and in what order?
- Who will be responsible for making and maintaining the contacts?
- What will is the scale of influence/buy-in we would like to achieve amongst the variance target audiences?
- What is the incentive structure for staff?
III. Technology: Research and Development
- What is the essence and status of our current technology (idea, prototype, small production run, etc.)?
- What new technologies or scientific approaches exist that may become practical in the next five years? What factors limit the development or acceptance?
- What are the key research and development activities and related milestones?
- What are the major risks associated with the mapping and valuation technology?
- How will we develop a staffing and approach to meet changing site needs and changing market needs?
- Are there any regulatory or approval requirements for the adoption of a mapping and valuation approach in decision making? Under what context?
IV. Operations
- How will we accomplish with existing staff? How much will we do internally and by what methods?
- How much through subcontracts, both initially and after several years?
- What is our present capacity for meeting our current goals? How can this be expanded?
V. Management
- Who are our key managers?
- How much decision making authority/responsibility do they have?
- What are their skills and, particularly, their experience, and how does this relate to the success requirements of the organization?
- What has their track record been, and how does this relate to the organization’s requirements?
- What staff additions do we plan, when and with what required qualifications? Who makes the staffing decisions?
- Who will be on the board of directors? To serve what purpose?
- Will there be an executive committee? Who will be on it? To serve what purpose?
VI. Organization and Personnel
- How many people will we need by expertise?
- What compensation method will be used by expertise?
- What will be the organizational structure for formative years and thereafter?
VII. Funds Required, Their Uses and Their Management
- How much money do we require now?
- How much will we require over the next five years, and when will it be required?
- How will these funds be used?
- Who will be responsible for raising the funds? How will fund raising responsibility be allocated?
- Where will the funds be kept? Under what type of management?
- Who makes fund disbursement decision and at what level?
VIII. Financial Data
- We will need real financial statements and projects for the next three to five years, including
- Balance sheets at the end of each year.
- Cash budgets
- Capital budgets for equipment
- What key assumptions have been made and how good are these assumptions?
IX. Administrative Considerations
- Has the organization’s name been researched for trademark, etc? Do we have the rights to use the name?