NESsT Tools for Practitioners

Get Ready, Get Set:

Starting Down the Road to Self-Financing

Get Ready, Get Set is designed to help the staff and board of a nonprofit organization consider their options for self-financing. Get Ready, Get Set is a beginner-level handbook that helps you decide whether (and how) starting up or expanding a social enterprise can help your organization reach its financial and mission goals. Get Ready, Get Set will help you assess your readiness for social enterprise; identify enterprise opportunities that match your core values, mission, competencies and goals; and assess the feasibility of enterprise ideas and your capacity to undertake them.

Get Ready, Get Set guides you through these “pre-planning” stages of enterprise development using:

1) an 80-page guide book outlining each step in the process (view contents);

2) a workbook with 38 worksheets with practical exercises on an interactive CD (view worksheet examples);

3) a 40-page case study book providing a real-life example of how a nonprofit applied each step of the process (view contents); and

4) a free binder to hold your worksheets.

Get Ready, Get Set is a perfect roadmap for those considering a journey down the road to self-financing.

All in the Same Boat:

An Introduction to Engaged Philanthropy

Many philanthropists are successful business professionals, investors or entrepreneurs. In addition to their financial resources, they bring expertise, skills, and collegial networks that can be of enormous benefit to the nonprofits they support. A growing number of donors and philanthropists are seeking ways to become more closely involved with a limited "portfolio" of charities, providing a combination of financial, intellectual and social capital. These so-called "engaged philanthropists" infuse their grantmaking activities with the principles and tools of venture capital investing, partnering with these organizations over an extended period of time.

Why is this approach to philanthropy on the rise worldwide? How does this approach differ from traditional philanthropy? What are the potential benefits and pitfalls of this investment approach? This primer attempts to answer some of these questions for donors who are considering an engaged philanthropy approach to their charitable giving.

View Contents

Enterprising Mentality: A Social Enterprise Guide for Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities Organizations

Enterprising Mentality introduces social enterprise as a viable sustainability strategy for mental health and intellectual disability advocacy organizations. The manual offers background on self-financing activities and why mental health organizations can benefit from such activities. The steps of developing a social enterprise are outlined, and the experiences and lessons learned of six mental health organizations that have launched a social enterprise are assessed.

The manual is divided into five sections. Section One provides background on social enterprise in general and as a sustainability strategy for these organizations specifically. Section Two provides an overview of why mental health and intellectual disability advocacy organizations are particularly interested in social enterprise and why social enterprise is a viable option for these organizations. Section Three summarizes the steps in the enterprise development planning process and some of the specific areas that these organizations should be aware of. Section Four provides lessons learned by mental heath and intellectual disability advocacy organizations pursuing social enterprise. Section Five outlines various social enterprise models used by these organizations, highlighting some of the pros and cons of each and discussing real-life experiences of some organizations.

Commitment to Integrity: Guiding Principles for Nonprofits in the Marketplace

The first document of its kind, Commitment to Integrity is a "code of ethics" for the self-financing or enterprise activities of nonprofit organizations. The principles are intended to help nonprofit leaders recognize and better prepare for these ethical dimensions of entrepreneurial activity. Commitment to Integrity is a practical tool to help you ensure that ethical and responsible standards are upheld at every stage of your enterprise planning and development.

The principles, developed by NESsT in cooperation with colleagues around the world, address the ethical dimensions of CSO commercial activities in four key areas:

• commitment to mission and values;
• commitment to transparency;
• commitment to fairness;
• commitment to accountability.

Read more about the NESsT Social Enterprise Ethics Initiative (SEE INIT).