When nonprofits adopt the Scrum framework, three distinct roles come into play: the Scrum Master, the Development Team, and the Product Owner. Of the three, the Product Owner is widely considered the most challenging — and for good reason. In a nonprofit context, the Product Owner is the person responsible for ensuring that the work your team does is aligned with your mission, responsive to your community’s needs, and delivered in a way that maximizes impact with limited resources.
This post breaks down what a Product Owner does in a nonprofit, the key techniques they use, and how to set your Product Owner up for success.
📥 New to Scrum roles and terminology? Download the free Glossary of Scrum Terms — written specifically for nonprofits — and the Scrum Role Chart to see how each role fits together on your team.
What Does a Product Owner Do in a Nonprofit?
Nonprofit Product Owners architect programs, services, and projects so that they can adapt to change — even late in the development process. They are responsible for:
- Creating a shared understanding of the vision for the services and products their nonprofit provides, and connecting their team with the big picture
- Building and maintaining the product backlog — the prioritized list of all work needed to deliver on that vision, refined over time using a just-in-time approach
- Ensuring backlog items are prioritized by value, so the team is always working on what matters most to the community they serve
- Spending roughly half their time interfacing with stakeholders and community members to understand needs, and the other half getting work to a “ready” state so the development team has a clear picture of the problems they’re solving
Product Owners ensure that what the team produces is valuable, meets the definition of done, and is of high quality. It is a role that sits at the intersection of strategy and execution — and in a nonprofit, that means staying anchored to mission impact at every step.
📥 Download the free Backlog Guide to guide your team through the beginning stages of building and managing your own product backlog.
3 Key Techniques Nonprofit Product Owners Use
Product Owners use several advanced techniques to carefully architect slices of work that the team can complete together and that result in working, demonstrable, tested products. Here are the three most important:
1. Product Roadmap Development
Product roadmap development involves decomposing the product vision, milestones, and goals into large buckets of scope. That scope is then sized, prioritized, and time-phased into releases, giving the team a high-level plan for the product. The Product Owner breaks down the work for the first release so that there are at least three Sprints of work ready to be pulled by the team.
For nonprofits, a product roadmap helps leadership and stakeholders see the connection between the day-to-day work of the team and the larger mission outcomes the organization is working toward. It makes the “why” visible — which is essential for board buy-in, funder reporting, and team motivation.
2. Release Plan Development
Release plan development helps the Product Owner answer two critical questions: When will the work be done? and How much will it cost? The Product Owner prioritizes work to ensure that a minimum viable product (MVP) is delivered first, with future releases iterating and further refining until the product fully meets stakeholder needs.
Nonprofit Product Owners operate under the 80/20 rule: 80% of the value is typically found in 20% of the features. This means that lower-value work may not need to be completed at all in order to meaningfully serve the community — a powerful principle for organizations that are always managing limited resources.
📥 The Lean Canvas Action Guide is a great companion for Product Owners thinking through release planning — it helps map out the value proposition, client needs, and funding model all in one place.
3. Story Mapping
Story mapping is an activity in which the Product Owner guides the team through user story development. Stories are written with a narrative that captures who the community member or client is, what their problem is, and why that problem needs to be solved. Each story represents a small piece of work that can be completed within a single Sprint.
Story mapping connects the development team, stakeholders, and clients with how individual backlog items relate to the larger product roadmap — and ensures that when work is decomposed, nothing important is left out. Read our blog post on how to create a story map for your nonprofit for a step-by-step walkthrough.
📥 Use the Scrum Event Checklist to understand how Sprint Planning — the event where story map items are pulled into the Sprint — fits into the full Scrum cycle.
How to Set Your Nonprofit Product Owner Up for Success
The Product Owner role is not one that people simply grow into on the job — it requires intentional training and a community of peers to learn from. The single best investment a nonprofit can make in its Scrum practice is ensuring its Product Owner is trained by experienced instructors who understand the nonprofit context.
When your Product Owner attends our Scrum Product Owner course — designed by Dr. Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum — they will learn how to clearly communicate their product vision, develop and prioritize a product backlog, maximize the value of the team’s work, and consistently deliver programs and services to their community.
But formal training doesn’t have to be the first step. If you’re earlier in your Agile journey and looking to build momentum and organizational buy-in first, these free resources are a great place to start:
📥 Getting Started with Scrum Checklist — a step-by-step guide for nonprofits beginning their Scrum journey
📥 Building Buy-In for Agile in Your Nonprofit — a guide for championing Agile adoption with leadership and your team
We hope to see you at our next Scrum Product Owner course — and in the meantime, explore the 4 Advantages of Having a Scrum Master in Your Nonprofit to see how the Product Owner and Scrum Master roles work together.
This blog was updated on 3/18/2026