Social Business Plan Template January 2007

This template will give you an idea of what your social business plan will need to include. Each business is different so each social business plan will be different, but you can use this as a guide. Perhaps the most important thing to remember when writing your plan is that you need to engage your reader we would suggest that someone is much more likely to invest in your social enterprise if they have enjoyed reading your social business plan. You need to tell a story your plan needs to make sense. Similarly, you and other people involved in your organisation are more likely to read the plan again if it is easy to digest. Social business plans vary in length, depending on the type of business but if your plan is more than 20 pages long, its worth asking yourself whether you can shorten your plan.

Contents How we wrote this social business plan....................................................3 Summary............................................................................................3 Market research...................................................................................3 Vision, mission, objectives and activities..................................................5 How we will deliver our service...............................................................5 Suppliers and partners..........................................................................7 People.................................................................................................7 Premises and logistics...........................................................................7 Marketing and PR.................................................................................7 Legal issues.........................................................................................7 Financial projections.............................................................................8 Financial management and reporting.......................................................8 Sources of finance................................................................................8 Social accounting..................................................................................8 Appendix 1..........................................................................................9 Appendix 2..........................................................................................9 Appendix 3..........................................................................................9 Appendix 4..........................................................................................9 Appendix 5..........................................................................................9

How we wrote this social business plan

This may not be relevant, but we often include this section to give people an idea of how you wrote the plan particularly if you involved other people, eg service users, members of the local community.

Summary
Write this section at the end, once youve completed your plan. It should be no longer than one page, and should give someone who is short on time a real feel of what your social business is about. One way to do it is to have a short paragraph for each of the sections of your plan.

Market research
The Market
Include information about the market for your service or product, eg the number of people who may benefit from your service, or any info on age breakdown. You may well get broad market information from the Business Library at Leeds Central Library have a look for a Mintel or Keynote report on your chosen market (or on a very similar market).

Customers
Include information about your customers, particularly results of any market research you have carried out with them. If you have undertaken some market research using www.surveymonkey.com, you could include a results summary as an appendix. You may also wish to include demographic information. You could get this from the 2001 census and other sources, including an ACORN profile from www.upmystreet.com. http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk is a good source of info, as is www.leeds-statistics.org . If you are going to target a particular area, include information about that area, from ACORN and other sources.

Competitors
Include information here about who your competitors will be/could be remember to think creatively. Try to anticipate who may enter the market in the future. Try to analyse competition, perhaps in terms of strengths and

weaknesses. Then think about how you could manage the threat.

Partners
Include information here about any other organisations you will work with think creatively not just within your sector.

Rough estimate of the size of the market

Try to estimate the size of the market. How many people are in the market for a service like yours? Is this number likely to increase/decrease? Once youve come up with a figure for the size of the market, estimate how much of that market you might take.

For example our research suggests that 5000 people in Leeds are in the market for a veg-box delivery service such as ours. Potentially the value of the market for deliveries is 5000*12*10 (12 months, 10 charge per delivery) ie 600,000. We think that 20% of people may choose to buy from us. Therefore our market share could be worth 120,000. (This is a very rough example but thats the idea).

Other useful information

Usually when youre doing market research, youll come across little nuggets of information which dont fit anywhere else. Include them here.

Market research to do
You may well have things still to do re market research. here. List them

Vision, mission, objectives and activities

Vision
This is the big big picture it may never be fully achieved, and you will only play a part in it.

Mission
This is your big goal what youre trying to achieve socially.

Objectives
In three years time, what will be the headlines in the newspaper, detailing your achievements? No rules about how many you can have, but remember that you will manage your business and judge success based on your objectives, so try to keep it manageable. Any more than six can get a bit complicated. You may wish to group them into categories social, financial (and maybe environmental although many people include environmental objectives with social objectives).

Activities
The main activities to achieve objective 1: write it here List here what youll do to achieve objective 1

The main activities to achieve objective 2: write it here List here what youll do to achieve objective 2

The main activities to achieve objective 3: write it here List here what youll do to achieve objective 3

How we will deliver our service

Tell the story of what youll do here. Write it in an engaging way, so someone can get a feel of what youll do. Include a case study/example if thats helpful. How will it work from a customers perspective? Talk us through your process, from when the customer realises they need a service like yours, through to them getting the service and paying for it. Inspire me to invest!

As a guide, this section may be around two pages long.

Suppliers and partners

Tell us about who your suppliers will be. Have you spoken to them? What will be their terms for trading with you? If you dont know who they are yet, mention what suppliers you will need, and what youll be looking for from them. Similarly, talk about partners here. Who are they? How will you work together? What extra added value will you bring to customers by working together? Convince me as an investor that the partnership is a good thing.

People
Tell us about who is involved. If you need to attract more people, tell us what kind of skills you are looking for. Eventually, you should have person specs and job descriptions in this section, but, depending on what stage youre at, this may not be realistic at this stage.

Premises and logistics

Where will you trade from? Do you have any transport needs? Where will you store any goods that you are selling?

Marketing and PR
Tell us about how youll develop relationships with customers. Focus particularly on benefits what benefits will you bring both to customers and to other stakeholders. You could include the one page marketing plan that we have developed.

Legal issues
Put down information about your potential legal structure. Dont assume that your reader will understand what a particular structure is. If youre going for a CIC, outline the key features of that. Focus particularly on who the directors are, whether people will take out profit, and arrangements for governance (planned monthly meetings etc) Think also about insurance and CRB checks etc

Financial projections
Include notes on how you have arrived at your financial projections such as assumptions you have made etc. A spreadsheet full of figures with no explanation will alienate the reader, and will suggest that youve just pulled figures out of thin air. Attach the projections as an appendix. Include projections for a realistic period 3 years is the standard but its better to include one years detailed projection than 3 years of complete guesswork.

Financial management and reporting

Robust financial management procedures are important in any business, particularly in those early, chaotic, days. Tell us how you will manage and minimise risks. How will you keep financial records? Will they be reported monthly or quarterly at Board meetings? Have you got an accountant in place? Will you know easily how much money is or isnt in your business?

Sources of finance
If you need investment or grants, outline what you need here. Tell us who you are approaching for support, and what the timescale is for decisions.

Social accounting
Tell us about any plans you have for social accounting.

Appendix 1
Appendices are likely to include things like financial projections, job descriptions etc.

Appendix 2 Appendix 3

Appendix 4 Appendix 5