how to / create centres / business plan A Community Resource Centre is usually not conceived as a business, rather as a community initiative, or even a club. However, whether or not it is designed to make a profit, your centre will stand much more chance of success if it adopts the Business Planning process - as any new small business should. In a competitive world, community projects and partnerships have found that it does no harm to copy techniques from the business world. You can successfully combine the business planning process with the usual good practice of community development. A Business Plan might be called a Project Plan or a Funding Plan - but it is essentially the same thing in all cases. Write a plan. Why write a plan? Writing a plan is the best way to formalise your ideas and structure them so that you can realistically assess whether your project will be viable, and to ensure that you are operating within the law. It will also be vital to persuade funders and partners to help you. A good Business Plan will help you to find the right questions as well as providing some of the answers. It will reveal areas where you need to find out more, and eventually provide you with a "map" to development. If you're planning to start your resource centre as a community group, the business planning process will help you to work together, keep you on track, and stop you getting side-tracked or hung up on contentious issues, like adopting a legal structure or agreeing on how to convert a building. If you also have to fill in a funding application form (eg NOF/Learning Centre application form) you will find it much easier if you have already gathered information into a Plan. On the other hand, if you have already filled in a funding application form you can transfer the information into your Business Plan. To help you, the Guidance Notes on these pages make links between your Plan and the NOF/Learning Centre application form. A key part of the plan will be the market research that you carry out, to identify the needs of the people you want to help - your customers. This should help you assess how many people will use your centre and whether the demand is high enough to make the project viable. You will also need to research the costs involved and predict your future payments for at least a year ahead. Preparing these forecasts will be an essential part of the plan, particularly if you are going to be applying for funding. It is also good practice for when you get going - and not as hard as it may sound. This part of the site can be used as a Project Plan template, with guidance on what to write and how to find information. It has been written with the NOF and DfEE ICT funding in mind, but can be used to support bids to other funding schemes. To help you in preparing a plan you will find links to websites which can provide you with further information. We have provided examples of the sort of things you could write in each section. If you would like a full paper version of "How to write a Business Plan" click here Writing tips for a good business plan Keep it clear, short and simple. You are writing this plan mainly for yourself, your funders and your collaborators. Just because it is a formal document doesn't mean you need to use formal language: say what you mean. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Communicate - don't complicate! However, a plan is usually written in the third person, i.e.. "The project will be run at ....." rather than "We will run the project at .... " Be SMART! Find out and use facts. S.M.A.R.T. stands for things which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. You need to put figures in and state the time period over which you hope to achieve targets Break the writing into manageable 'chunks'. Start with a framework or 'skeleton' like the one below and fill in each bit as you can. Share out fact finding and see if you can find different helpers to write different sections. But choose one overall 'editor' - it's impossible to write by committee! Remember that the business or project planning process is cyclical. Every time you find out something new, it will affect what you know already and you may have to revisit decisions and re-write sections. Planning is something that is never finished - a good project will consult and change its Plan and redo it every year! Other ideas for help Use the opportunity as a learning process. Perhaps you can get training-while-you-write. Find out is there is a support programme or training course already running locally, which you can join. The Directory for Social Change has a national Lottery funded project to support voluntary sector management development which may help. Do you know someone with experience in small business planning? (Please note: it's different from being an accountant at a huge multi-national!). If they don't have time to write the plan for you, perhaps they will mentor your group while you learn. Would a local company sponsor an employee to help you do this? Could you get help from Business Studies students at a local school or college? Many schools now run Young Enterprise schemes. If you have are working to a longer timescale consider getting a small grant (as a pre-project to your main aim) to run a train-as-you-write business planning course. Members of the group could gain valuable skills or perhaps even a qualification. Enroll at a local training organisation or college. The OCR qualification for Owner/Managers of small business (NVQ level 3) is useful and adaptable for not-for-profit business planning. Consider obtaining training and business counselling from your local Enterprise Agency - it will usually be free . how to / create centres / business plan