NAGA Strategies Consulting

Resources

Tools for clearer decisions and stronger organizations.

A growing library of practical questions, frameworks, and field tools for nonprofit leaders and boards.

Use what is useful

Not every organizational challenge needs a full consulting engagement.

Sometimes a strong question, a shared framework, or a simple decision tool is enough to help a board or leadership team move.

These resources reflect recurring questions in NAGA's work. Use them as conversation starters, planning prompts, meeting tools, or a way to determine when deeper support would be useful.

StrategyPlanning readiness

Before You Plan

Do you need a strategic plan—or a different planning tool?

Before launching a planning process, ask whether the organization has enough clarity, capacity, and decision urgency to benefit from a formal strategic plan.

Start with these questions

  • What decision are we actually trying to make?
  • What has changed since our last plan?
  • Do we have unresolved leadership, governance, or financial issues that planning alone will not solve?
  • What information do we need before choosing direction?
  • Would a strategy screen, theory of change, scenario process, or shorter priority-setting process fit better?
StrategyDecision-making

Strategy Screen

A shared filter for opportunities, priorities, and tradeoffs.

Use the same questions each time a major opportunity or new idea appears. A consistent screen makes strategy visible in everyday decisions.

Test the opportunity

  • Does this advance our mission and current priorities?
  • Who benefits, and whose needs are centered?
  • What capacity, money, time, or attention will it require?
  • What will we stop, delay, or deprioritize if we say yes?
  • What would tell us this was the right decision?
GovernanceBoard development

Five Responsibilities of a Strong Board

A simple framework for moving from a working board toward healthy governance.

Boards can contribute in many ways, but five responsibilities provide a useful foundation for clarifying what governing actually requires.

The five responsibilities

  1. Strategic leadership: keep mission, direction, and long-term questions visible.
  2. Financial stewardship: understand financial health, risk, sustainability, and major resource choices.
  3. Executive partnership: hire, support, supervise, and evaluate the Executive Director.
  4. Ambassadorship and resource development: strengthen relationships, reputation, and support.
  5. Healthy governance: maintain effective structures, board culture, accountability, and legal/fiduciary responsibilities.
LeadershipSuccession

Leadership Transition Readiness

Succession planning starts before a leader announces a departure.

The strongest transition work reduces organizational dependence on any single person and makes responsibilities, information, and relationships easier to carry across leadership change.

Readiness questions

  • Which responsibilities or relationships are concentrated in one person?
  • What information would be difficult to recover if the leader were suddenly unavailable?
  • Who has authority during an emergency transition?
  • What does the board need to understand about the Executive Director role?
  • What organizational conditions should be strengthened before a search begins?

More field tools

Questions and frameworks NAGA uses repeatedly.

These tools can become standalone resources, workshop materials, or customized supports within a consulting engagement.

Board Self-Assessment

Explore role clarity, culture, strategic focus, engagement, and board effectiveness.

ED Responsibility Mapping

Make leadership scope, ownership, delegation, and organizational gaps visible.

Financial Sustainability Lens

Connect strategic decisions to revenue, cost, capacity, reserves, and risk.

Operating Model Ecosystem

Look across leadership, governance, people, programs, finances, and infrastructure.

Retreat Design Questions

Clarify what participants need to understand, decide, practice, or own before building an agenda.

Implementation Check-In

Review progress, obstacles, ownership, learning, and what needs to change rather than simply reporting activity.

Need something customized?

Tools are most useful when they fit the organization using them.

NAGA can adapt these frameworks for a board retreat, planning process, leadership transition, or other organizational need.

Talk about your situation
Illustration of an engaged board and leadership team working around a round table.