Sustainability Planning Workbook Modules
The workbook begins with a Planning to Plan guide to help community leaders think strategically about how to structure a planning process and who to include in the planning effort. Since no two planning processes are alike, this guide also provides information on how to tailor the process to the needs of a particular initiative. The guide includes model planning structures, as well as worksheets to help initiative leaders track their progress through the planning process.

Module I: Building a Sustainable Initiative

The first step in sustainability planning is to consider the wide range of resources – both fiscal and nonfiscal – that are critical to sustaining community initiatives. Module I presents The Finance Project’s eight elements of sustainability and provides guidance on how to use this framework during the planning process.

Before initiative leaders can plan where they want to go, they must first assess where they currently are. Module I also includes a self-assessment tool that allows initiative leaders to benchmark their progress and identify the strengths and weaknesses of their initiative.

Module II: Developing a Vision and Results Orientation

Leaders of successful initiatives have a clear and compelling vision of what they want to accomplish and what results they hope to achieve. An important step in sustainability planning is for initiative leaders to clarify what they want to sustain – be it a set of programs, a service delivery model, or a governance structure, for example – and what they mean by sustainability.

Using a logic model process, Module II helps initiative leaders define what they want to sustain, the results they are trying to achieve, what strategies and activities will help them make progress toward those results, and how to measure their progress.

Module III: Creating a Strategic Financing Plan

Adequate fiscal resources are also critical to the long-term success of community initiatives. Module III takes community leaders through the process of developing a strategic financing plan. The process includes:

• Estimating the fiscal resources needed to sustain an initiative;
  
• Mapping current resources that support the initiative;
  
• Identifying funding gaps; and
  
• Analyzing a range of funding sources and financing strategies to meet the fiscal needs of the initiative.

Module III helps community leaders make reasonable fiscal estimates and provides information on a variety of funding sources and financing strategies that can support community initiatives. Module III also provides tools to help community leaders to determine what funding sources and financing strategies are most appropriate to their particular initiative.

Module IV: Building Organizational Capacity and Community Support

In addition to financing strategies, the leaders and developers of promising initiatives also need to develop strategies to marshal other non-monetary resources that are necessary to sustain their work, such as mobilizing community support, cultivating leadership, and building organizational capacity.

Using the results of the self-assessment and an environmental scan, this module helps community leaders determine the array of strategies and specific activities they will need to sustain their initiatives. Module IV highlights examples of successful strategies and provides guidance in designing strategies that meet an initiative’s most critical needs. Because initiative leaders operate with scarce time and resources, this module also includes tools for prioritizing strategies related to organizational capacity and community support.

Module V: Developing and Writing the Plan

Module V provides practical instructions on how to translate all of the information generated in the first four modules into a clear written plan, the final element of sustainability. This module includes guidance on how to structure a written plan and what to include in the document. Module V also provides information on how to use a sustainability plan to generate support for an initiative, to assist in fundraising efforts, and to guide future decision making about the initiative.