Scenario planning helps prepare for future crises

• Date: 01 February 2021
• Published date: 01 February 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/ban.31214

B&A For Board Members

DOI 10.1002/ban © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved

Scenario planning helps prepare

for future crises

Many nonprof‌its have put off—or scaled back—

their strategic planning this year, because with

everything else going on, they haven’t had the time

and resources to commit to it or because they’ve

opted to take a short-term, triage-based ap-

proach aimed at getting through to the end of the

pandemic.

With recently approved vaccines being rolled out

across the country, some groups may be think-

ing the worst is behind them. But experts suggest

keeping your guard up about the many different

“what ifs” that could still play out and making

plans to address a wider array of scenarios that

could impact your operations.

According to Making Sense of Uncertainty: Non-

prof‌it Scenario Planning During a Crisis, a guide

published by The Bridgespan Group, the f‌irst step

to planning for emergency events like the COVID-

19 pandemic is to identify the key drivers of your

organization’s economics and impact—in basic

terms, your programs, operations and funding.

Then, consider the universe of things that could

possibly affect each of those categories, no matter

how remote.

As the pandemic has shown, nightmare sce-

narios can develop quickly and seemingly out of

thin air—a viral outbreak that started on the other

side of the world spread like wildf‌ire and led to

shutdowns impacting a large swath of the U.S.

economy in a matter of a few months. Nonprof‌its

and their boards would do well to commit to a cri-

sis planning exercise where members brainstorm

on what big developments in the world could con-

ceivably come up in the next 12–18 months—and

then assess how much risk they present to the

organization.

In evaluating levels of risk, the Bridgespan

guide says, you should consider three questions:

• What is the nature of the risk associated with

the driver?

• What is the likelihood that the risk plays

itself out?

• If the risk played out, how much of an impact

would it have?

It’s not possible to develop contingency plans for

every possible development, of course. But this ex-

ercise should at least get the organization and its

leadership thinking about a wider f‌ield of potential

scenarios that could impact their operations, so

that they can be more prepared if the need arises.

To access the scenario planning guide in full,

visit https://bit.ly/388leow. ■

Resources available to help protect

against cybersecurity threats

The importance of cybersecurity for the non-

prof‌it sector was highlighted again recently in a

major way when Philabundance—a hunger relief

organization based in Philadelphia—announced

it had been scammed out of almost $1 million

through an online “phishing” scheme. According

to news reports, scammers inf‌iltrated the organi-

zation’s computer system and mimicked invoices

from a company Philabundance was working with

on the construction of its new community kitchen.

In all, the charity paid some $923,533 to a fraudu-

lent account set up by the thieves.

While cybersecurity measures are often han-

dled by the executive director and IT staff, board

members play a crucial role in setting policy, follow-

ing good cyber practices, and ensuring there’s suff‌i-

cient resources to support cybersecurity operations,

according to board training consultancy BoardEf-

fect. To that end, the company has developed a free,

interactive webinar that explores how boards can

better prepare for cyber-related incidents.

Participants will learn about:

• the board’s role in cyber-risk oversight,

• the latest trends in cyber-risk and

• how boards can leverage technology to be

better prepared.

For more information, the webinar can be ac-

cessed online at https://bit.ly/2WqeP2y. ■