Business models for sustainability and scale are made, not born. Nonprofits develop strategic plans, but often leave the business model out. This session will outline what a business model is, how it fits into a strategic planning process and why building a strong business model is vital to building a higher impact, sustainable nonprofit. Speakers will share examples of different approaches to business models and some of the challenges nonprofits face in developing them.

Alexa Cortes Culwell is the founder and managing director of Philanthropy Futures, a strategic advisory firm that works alongside leaders to chart the course for creating positive social change. The firm develops vision, strategic direction, and business models, energized by effective meeting design and facilitation, as well as leadership coaching to support implementation. Cortes Culwell also serves as a visiting practitioner at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. For nearly two decades, Cortes Culwell served as a foundation chief executive officer guiding philanthropic investments focused on building capacity and scale, first at the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation and then at the Stupski Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from the University of San Francisco.

 

Antony Bugg-Levine is chief executive officer of Nonprofit Finance Fund, a national nonprofit and financial intermediary that unlocks the potential of mission-driven organizations through tailored investment, strategic advice, and transformational ideas. In this role, he oversees more than $225 million of investment capital and a national consulting practice, and works with a range of philanthropic, private sector, and government partners to develop and implement innovative approaches to financing social change. He is the coauthor of the newly released Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference. A former consultant with McKinsey & Co., he also teaches at Columbia Business School.

 

Janet Gless is president of New Teacher Center, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders. A cofounder of NTC, Gless has overseen the organization's business growth and program dissemination, which result in direct impact on the instructional practice of 23,000+ new teachers each year. Her contributions include curriculum design, professional development and delivery, capacity-building, business modeling, and strategic planning. Before colaunching New Teacher Center in 1998, Gless worked as an academic coordinator at the University of California, Santa Cruz; as a visiting educator administering a statewide mentoring initiative at the California Department of Education; and as an induction program coordinator, staff developer, and high school foreign language and ESL teacher in an urban district in the San Francisco Bay Area.