Business planning

These two words strike fear into many a management committee. You’re a charity, not a business, so surely you don’t need to worry about business plans – there’s enough to do just running the organisation and making sure the accounts are prepared on time.

In the halcyon days of Victorian philanthropy (?), charities were established by wealthy individuals or businesses with a great chunk of money, which would be invested and the charity trustees would have the income from that investment to fund their good works. Things have moved on, though as more and more voluntary organisations have been set up in response to changing needs and most of these have to raise income themselves, whether from their own fund-raising activities, delivering services under contract, external grants, charging for services or loans. Whatever your sources of income, you need a plan which, at its most simple, sets out what your organisation aims to do, how it proposes to do it and what resources are needed to achieve this. All too often, developing a business plan is seen as a one-off activity, undertaken by a single individual (possibly an external consultant) to satisfy the requirements of a particular funder. Once it’s completed, it’s put on a shelf to gather dust until another funder asks for a business plan, by which time the first one is out of date and possibly lost.

The NCVO’s Sustainable Funding Projects explains that there is a direct link between effective planning and long-term sustainability, but points out that writing the business plan is just one element of a larger planning cycle which has six stages:

  1. Getting the direction right
  2. Environmental analysis
  3. Options and choice
  4. Writing the plan
  5. Implementation
  6. Evaluation

For lots of advice and information on planning, including business plans and the Tools for Tomorrow planning toolkit see www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/sfp/

Organisations often ask for a template they can use to help them put together a business plan, but there is not a one-size-fits-all solution: what’s right for a large national charity is not going to be appropriate for a small local organisation; what suits a well-resourced charitable company will not suit an unincorporated association which relies on volunteers. Some funders, such as the Big Lottery Fund, provide applicants with details of what they expect to see in a business plan. Others will indicate what needs to be included and even suggest the maximum number of pages they want to see! For it to be a real, workable document for trustees, staff, volunteers, wider stakeholders and funders, the business plan must fit your organisation and be a useful tool for everyone.

If you’re looking for help to start putting together your first business plan, you may find the following useful:

Free downloadable sample business plans for a range of types of businesses and organisations from http://www.business-plans.co.uk/

Advice from Business Link on preparing a business plan can be found at
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073869162

Another site with a huge amount of useful information, advice, templates and links is
www.businessballs.com

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