South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau Information Sheets Last updated October 2004 All our information is produced in a standard sized typeface, but we can produce it in other formats on request South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau The Workstation 15 Paternoster Row Sheffield S1 2BX Tel: 0114 249 4343 email: enquiries@syfab.org.uk Website: www.syfab.org.uk Funding Advice Line 0114 276 5460 Registered Charity No: 1061118 Reg. Company No: 3030641 Business Plans More and more funders are asking for a business plan to be included with applications. For them, a business plan establishes the need for the service you want to provide, and your competence in providing it. Funders also want to be reassured that you can achieve your targets and evaluate your service. Ideally, funders aside, your business plan will be a document produced from regular planning. It should help you to be clear about what you do and how you want to develop. Before you start, ask yourself why you are doing it, and who you think will read it. What is a business plan? The term business plan may not really be very appropriate to the voluntary and community sector. You may prefer to call it a Development Strategy or Plan. It is a statement of what you are proposing to do over 2 to 3 years, how much money is needed, when it will be needed, and where it will come from. The core of your business plan will be a forecast of income and expenditure for that period of time. Try to keep it as concise and short as possible and avoid jargon. Although it is easier for a small group of people to draft a business plan, it is essential that your whole group approves the final version. It can take quite a while to do - months rather than weeks. Writing a business plan can be a positive experience for your group and: • Help focus on what you are actually doing. • Stimulate creative thinking by involving lots of people • Challenge assumptions that you are, or are not, meeting your aims & objectives • Help identify areas of weakness • Identify what is holding you back - whether it is a shortage of people, time or funding. • Establish a list of priorities • Help to develop action plans • Help you spot new opportunities • Provide a means of monitoring and evaluating your progress • Help to avoid crisis management The business planning process: There is no one particular way to go about business planning, but allow enough time for all interested parties to reach agreement over where you are now before moving on to considering where you want to be in the future. You could use a technique known as a ‘SWOT Analysis’ - identifying your organisation’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Once these are agreed, you can set clear objectives for the future, agree priorities, and devise an action plan spelling out how you are going to get there. Allow time for drafting and redrafting the plan. What does a business plan look like? There isn’t just one model for the perfect business plan, but it could include: • A very brief statement of your aims • A description of your organisation, its history, and its achievements. • A list of the services you offer now, what makes them good and distinctive; the services you are planning to offer; and a discussion of the ‘competition’. • An ‘operational’ plan detailing how things are done, what resources are and will be used, your committee and staffing structures, recruitment and training procedures, how you comply with Health & Safety, and Equal Opportunities Laws, your complaints procedure and purchasing policy. • Details of your finances, including balance sheet and financial forecasts for 2 years. • An outline of how you will monitor the progress of the project. • A marketing plan - important in establishing what your users want and whether they will pay for it. Who are your users? Do they still want what you offer, or are you offering your service in the way you do because that’s the way you’ve always done it? Should you be offering new services? How much should you charge for your services or products? Don’t forget to include ‘invisible’ costs like staff time. Where can we get help? There is no single way of getting help with business planning. Different agencies may be able to give advice on different aspects like, say, presenting your cashflow. Your local Council for Voluntary Service is a good place to start, and one of SYFAB’s funding development workers may be able to help you with the bits about fundraising. It is always worth talking to other groups that have just been through the process. Although it may be tempting to pay someone to write your business plan for you, it is essential that your organisation itself does the planning and decision making. Otherwise you could end up spending a lot of money on a glossy looking document that may not actually get you any nearer to your goals. And, ultimately, a business plan should be a useful and useable document for your organisation, as well as for funders. Voluntary Action Barnsley 35 Queen’s Road Barnsley S71 1AN Tel: 01226 242 726 Website: www.vabarnsley.org.uk Doncaster Council for Voluntary Service 7 Netherhall Road Doncaster DN1 2PH Tel: 01302 813 333 Website: www.doncastercvs.org.uk Voluntary Action Rotherham 5 Moorgate Road Rotherham S60 2EN Tel: 01709 829 821 Voluntary Action Sheffield 69 Division Street Sheffield S1 4GE Tel: 0114 249 3360 Website: www.vas.org.uk Useful Publications Complete Guide to Business & Strategic Planning by Alan Lawrie, Directory of Social Change Tel: 0845 077 7077 Website: www.dsc.org.uk Business Plans: helping your application Available to download from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Website: www.hlf.org.uk © SYFAB 2004 All rights reserved. Our information is produced for local community and voluntary groups. No permission is needed for limited reproduction if the Bureau is acknowledged. Large scale reproduction or inclusion in publications for sale must have written permission from the Bureau. The South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau welcomes your comments and criticism. You can talk to any member of staff, or contact us by post, phone, fax or email - see the front page for details.