One of our readers emailed me asking me what the difference was between a business plan and a strategic plan, which is a great question. Luckily for us, the Alliance for Nonprofit Management has answered that question in a piece they published several years ago, Business Planning for Nonprofits: Why, When — and How It Compares to Strategic Planning (PDF). In a nutshell:
 
"Business plans include: Operationalization with the purpose to ensure financial success, guide performance, and ensure sustainability of the organization/venture as a vehicle for achieving larger goals...Strategic plans include: Big picture thinking about the social and organizational future, and decisions about how to realize an organization’s mission with specific goals, objectives, strategies, and resources — and involve stakeholders in the process." (p. 6)
 
What's particularly helpful about this document is that it gives an outline of the components in each type of plan. And there are some great resource links peppered throughout.
 
For those of you wanting to tackle this process, we will soon (soon!) have available a piece on writing SANE program business plans. I appreciate the challenge of trying to adapt general non-profit business resources for our work, so I hope this will be just one of many pieces we publish that is tailored to our specific business needs. The minute I have it in my sticky little fingers I will post it here, so stay tuned!