In considering financial sustainability strategies, and more importantly, following the success of the concept that financial sustainability should operate within nonprofit organizations as a deliberate and strategic approach to maintaining critical activities and issues, leadership relies on a number of methods and tactics. Four core characteristics have formed, supported by work on this subject as contributing to financial sustainability:

1- Financial Practices.

2- Establishing an Endowment Fund.

3- Strategic Planning and Thinking.

4- The Ability to Innovate.

Financial Practices:

Sound financial practices are the first essential condition for financial sustainability, and the process of defining them constitutes a routine method through which daily financial activities of nonprofit organizations are compiled, recorded, and reported, and when necessary, addressed.

Financial Goals:

The need for clear and short- or long-term financial goals defines the minimum income and expenses required to fulfill the mentioned mission.

Financial Reporting:

The need for clear and transparent financial reports is a powerful and useful tool that can be used strategically to assist in decision-making.

Transparency:

Transparency signifies the need for deliberate, consistent, effective, and transparent uses. These three main aspects of financial practices all contribute to enhancing accountability and form key components of financial sustainability.

Clear short- and long-term financial goals include not only basic metrics for minimum spending and revenue targets, but also relate to providing a sufficiently detailed budget presentation to be useful. The budget that details revenues and expenses is one of the essential tools available for effectively managing any organization.

Nonprofit organizations may lack the expertise and financial information systems that enable them to operate using these means, and they may also need the will or inclination (motivation) to adopt practices for setting financial goals. Hence, the budget should possess a degree of flexibility. Researchers in this field, such as De Waal in 2005, have included some in-depth ideas about addressing the budget beyond the primitive practice of financial reporting and forecasting.

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