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The financial plan operates on scenarios ranging from the minimum possible to the ideal, and the minimum scenario allows for determining the essential priorities needed to achieve a mission within a specified timeframe, and whether the organization can cover fixed or operational costs during that period, as these essential priorities and fixed operational costs represent the minimum fundraising target.

The financial action plan primarily consists of expected expenditures and the organization's potential to generate income to cover those expenditures, and although the financial plan may appear very similar to a budget, there are significant differences between the two. The financial plan is a dynamic document that changes frequently, and its ultimate purpose is to determine whether the organization has sufficient resources available in the medium term to meet the goals outlined in the strategic plan.

However, since it operates at a purely conceptual level, strategic planning has a weakness in that it does not sufficiently take into account the resources available to the organization and the implementation of the chosen strategies, or its capacity to obtain new resources, therefore it is crucial to engage in a parallel financial planning process that allows for the translation of the actions outlined in the strategic plan into figures.

As the organization grows and takes on an increasing number of activities, it risks focusing on daily administrative tasks and losing sight of long-term objectives, thus strategic planning serves as a mechanism to help clarify the organization's mission and its goals, as well as prioritize the necessary actions to achieve them. Additionally, effective planning has become a prerequisite for accessing available international funds.

If the organization is unclear about its goal, it might, for example, launch a revenue-generating project to raise $50,000 annually without considering that it has a current short-term deficit of $500,000 that needs to be addressed, and unless it has other means to raise that money, the amount of $50,000 will not be sufficient, and the organization will feel that it has not achieved any meaningful results or that it has not worked towards achieving a far-reaching goal.