| Abstract: | In the commercial sector, a range of strategies has been proposed for competitive advantage. Many of these strategies are inappropriate for nonprofit organisations. (The terms ‘nonprofit’, ‘not-for-profit’ and ‘charity’ are used interchangeably in this paper.) This paper proposes four generic strategies for competitive advantage in nonprofit organisations: externally driven, niche, differentiation and awareness. The niche strategy has two sub-strategies: the issue or emotional niche and the geographical niche. Differentiation has three sub-strategies; differentiation by audience, differentiation by product and differentiation by belief. These four strategies are not mutually exclusive and many nonprofit organisations move from one strategy to another. A development model for these transitions is proposed. |
