Business plan for charity

An effective business plan is essential for third sector organisations to avoid mission drift and maximise provision to their beneficiaries.

A business plan for a charity needs to be radically different to a business plan for an entrepreneur. Importantly, it needs to be alot more comprehensive. Our own research of 2458 business plans over 4 years has shown that 91% of them were completely unacceptable.

If shown to stakeholders and grant funders, they would probably create an adverse effect.

Consequently, we developed our own business planning template, developed from in-depth research which included the following:

• Interview and analysis of the most successful charities
• Scrutiny of 2458 business plans
• Interviews with over 300 funders to assess what they wanted from a business plan
• Interviews with a sample of diverse stakeholders

While individual donors still tend to focus more on their favoured charity’s administration, grant bodies will want to see an effective plan and to know what it contains.The effort that goes into an effective business plan ensures that it can continue to serve the needs of its beneficiaries and have the necessary funding. Most business plans are used as a proposal document to secure funding but they should also be used as an internal document to compare and review actual performance against projections. By doing this a business is able to:

• Notice potential problems and deal with them before they become critical
• Take action to keep the business on track as circumstances change
• Be proactive instead of reactive

Identify unnecessary costs and expenditure and improve income:

Business plans need three things:

• Focus: Your business plan must be focused on your charity and your industry, an "off the shelf template" is rarely able to achieve this.
• Appearance: Your business plan must look good, both in terms of the figures and proposals it contains, and the outward presentation.
• Believability: The people you’re asking for funding understand charity, if they don’t believe that you can achieve what your business plan suggests it’s unlikely they will offer the money.

We specialise in providing professional business plans that are specifically tailored to you. We do not provide "off the shelf" business plans. We understand that every business is different and that a "one size fits all" does not work.
You need a business plan that is written for and focused on your charity, a business plan that is written by people who take the time to understand your charity, your needs and your aims. We get under the skin of your organisation and produce a plan as if we ‘are one of your own’.

Let us do your Business Plan.

You also get as a FREE GIFT

1. Your money back in 3 months- we do effective fundraising for your group-FREE.
2. Over 95% of charities that ask us to do their business plan receive at least 3 times more than what they paid us.

If you commission us we will also give you the following FREE:

• Review of your Annual Report
• 365 Days per year advice on organisational development issues
• FREE advice on effective submission on your bids- based on our unique funding tips developed over 11 years and not available through any other consultancy firm Our Business Plans are the most effectively produced in the consultancy sector- we can guarantee that they will be fully comprehensive and we will undertake additional research if needed to make your business plan.

This is likely to be one of the best decisions your organisations will make- so we urge you to treat this Business Plan as an INVESTMENT that could potentially bring in significant income.
Most business plans are used as a proposal document to secure funding but they should also be used as an internal document to compare and review actual performance against projections. By doing this a business is able to:

• Notice potential problems and deal with them before they become critical
• Take action to keep the business on track as circumstances change
• Be proactive instead of reactive
• Identify unnecessary costs and expenditure and improve income streams