Plan Z: How to Create Your Dream Life in Just 60 Days_ (2006). The next section, "Setting Your Strategy," covers what you must do to prepare. Chapter 5 begins with three questions to ask yourself:
_What are your unique strengths and resources?_
_Who is your dream audience?_
_What are the big obstacles to success?_
The section on "The Big Plan" explains how to transform your dream into reality. Chapter 6 is the keystone of the plan, a 30-day action plan that will lead you through the process of starting your own nonprofit organization. Each of the six subsequent chapters focuses on a key element of the action plan and is presented with several days' worth of work. For instance, the chapter that focuses on setting your strategy includes both work-at-home and full-time chapters. After each chapter you will see a list of steps you can take to integrate this information into your own life. You will also see the additional resources provided at the end of the book. The book is set up to be self-contained, but for additional support you can contact the author through his website or his e-mail address, available under the "About the Author" section of www.sachindobbs.com. I have taught or developed curriculum for numerous nonprofit organizations and have had personal experience with more than 30 nonprofits, either by joining the board or by helping with fund-raising and development. The concepts in this book have worked for me in terms of generating income, serving the needs of others, and giving back to a worthy cause.
**_A_ BOUT THE AUTHOR**
Sachin Dobb's dream of starting a nonprofit organization was born one afternoon in 1994, when he met his now business partner, Yusuf Shabbir, in person at a workshop about business planning at City College in New York City. Over the next eight years, they became like a father and son, and when Sachin saw his son, who was seven years old at the time, take part in the workshop as a class project, he became inspired to change the world. The idea grew from there.
In 2004, Sachin got his MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School and received his degree in nonprofit management from Babson College. Later that year he developed a nonprofit curriculum for a program to help minority students obtain business degrees. At the same time, he researched and wrote about the business of community and nonprofit consulting, as well as about successful fundraising models. Since 2005 he has been teaching the subjects of nonprofit finance and development at the university level. He has also developed curriculum for the nonprofit sector in various venues, including Columbia University, Harvard, Stanford University, MIT, Brandeis University, and several for-profit organizations.
Sachin co-owns a small nonprofit consulting and development company in New York City. The company works with nonprofit and for-profit organizations to educate them about raising funds and to help them attract volunteers and donors. Dobb Consulting helps nonprofits plan, organize, and execute fund-raising activities. Dobb Development helps nonprofits reach new people and organizations through social networking, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and fundraising campaigns.
With his partner, Yusuf, Sachin launched a blog, One Person One Card, in March of 2008. Since then, the site has generated nearly 250,000 unique visitors and more than 5 million views. The blog has articles about various aspects of nonprofit management, marketing, fundraising, strategy, and people management. It has been covered in the _New York Times_ , _Seattle Times_ , _St. Petersburg Times_ , and _Baltimore Sun_.
The idea for this book grew from a series of articles that he wrote about the same topic over the years in his blog. He finally decided to put his thoughts together in this book for the nonprofits and organizations that aspire to grow, regardless of their size. Sachin has written extensively for other organizations, including the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, where he received his undergraduate degree; Babson College, where he earned his MBA; the _New York Times_ , _Chronicle of Philanthropy_ , _Fund Raising Management_ , _Fund Raising News_ , _Huffington Post_ , _Business News Daily_ , and _Entrepreneur_ , among others. His work has also appeared in _Young_ magazine, the _L.A. Times_ , and other newspapers and websites. His goal for this book is to offer a solution to the many challenges that nonprofit leaders face. Sachin writes, "We believe that by providing this material to as many young professionals as possible we can help more and more people come together to create positive changes in the world. This book is a first step in sharing our knowledge."
**A _cknowledgments_**
We would like to express our gratitude to all the nonprofits that we have had the privilege to serve over the years. We are particularly indebted to those who have given us tremendous support and encouragement and who have provided us with great ideas, information, and wisdom. A special thanks to Robert J. Haddock and the team at Berrett-Koehler Publishers and to Peter Kimball, President of National Charity League, for their support and advice during the development of this book. Our appreciation goes to all the past and current employees of Dobb Consulting and Dobb Development and to the many members of the corporate board of directors of the United Nations Associations (UNAs). The UNAs provided support for this book in its formative stages through their sponsorships.
We would also like to thank our friends and families for supporting us throughout our entrepreneurial adventures and our efforts to spread positive messages and to make a difference in the world. Thanks to our teachers and professors who have provided us with an outstanding education that has given us the ability to help others.
**_Contents_**
_Foreword_
_Preface_
1. What Does the Book Cover?
2. The Plan
3. Setting Your Strategy
4. Creating Your Organization
5. Raising Money to Build Your Organization
6. Running Your Organization
7. Making Your Organization Thrive
8. Managing Your Organization
9. Selling Your Organization
10. Making an Impact with Your Organization
11. Fund-raising Basics for Nonprofit Organizations
_Appendix_
_About the Authors_
FOREWORD
Many of the organizations I've worked with have wanted or needed a clear strategy for growth, and they usually want to know how it can be achieved and what steps need to be taken. This book will help organizations increase the flow of resources to their projects and to grow rapidly as they provide great value to their constituencies. By providing clear insights about creating value, attracting and maintaining funding sources, and generating revenue, this book will help organizations develop a strategy for growth.
The information in this book about strategy is based on experience and lessons learned by the authors over a lifetime of work in nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Sachin and Yusuf have written this book from an extensive understanding of creating value for customers and creating profit for organizations.
This book is not just a series of recipes for nonprofit success; it goes beyond organizational strategy. A successful nonprofit or business strategy takes into consideration what values the organization or business wishes to impart and how to transmit those values. Some business strategies are focused on profit, some on expansion. Other strategies are driven by a passion or desire to contribute to society, some are focused on fulfilling some deeper yearning.
For the author to accomplish his or her purpose in writing this book, it had to be written from an understanding of these different values and the different ways in which they may be represented, as well as the many ways in which values can be translated into profit. This book is therefore not just about the strategy; it is also about the values.
In this era of nonprofit and for-profit mergers and acquisitions, we live in an age of mergers and acquisitions. Sachin and Yusuf have written this book on how to grow your organization or business strategically, and their intent is to help other nonprofit and for-profit organizations, as well as the people who serve them, to find new sources of funding and new ways of creating value that produce a greater amount of success than they ever thought possible.
The authors have spent their careers helping nonprofit and for-profit organizations develop their strategies to reach their goals and have learned that the first step in any strategy is to determine what you want to accomplish, how you intend to accomplish it, and how it will make a difference in the world. In the remainder of the book, they discuss the various strategies that can be used to achieve success, from raising money to building an organization, and they describe the steps that need to be taken to implement these strategies. They will help you determine which steps to take, how to implement the steps you choose, and how to create strategies that support each other.
The authors talk about the people and the team members who must work together to make your strategy a success. In the chapter on managing your organization, they discuss the importance of establishing a culture within your organization. They also offer some information on how to attract, develop, and retain people.
A key to this book's success in helping nonprofit organizations strategize their efforts is in its focus on understanding the impact of nonprofit value and nonprofit value creation. If nonprofit organizations do not understand how value and value
