Write a Business Plan
From www.entrepreneurstoolkit.org
Contents |
Not Just For-Profit
The foundation of any new business it a carefully thought out Business Plan. Even if your company's objective is to create positive social or environmental impacts, there is a lot to be learned by using this traditional business planning tool.
The purpose of your Business Plan is to outline the core features of your business and what it hopes to achieve. A good business plan allows potential investors to evaluate your idea and helps you identify the keys to your business' sucess and the potential challenges you may encounter.
Getting Started
There are thousands of resources available on-line which outline the components of a business plan and provide helpful samples. As a general rule, your plan should include:
- Executive Summary: Write this last. It should be a page long summary of your business plan containing just an overview with highlights.
- Company/Organization Description: This should include a basic desciption of your company or organization including information like where it is based and how many employees you have.
- Product or Service: Describe the product and/or service your company provides.
- Social or Environmental Impacts: Outline the positive social or environmental impacts your business will produce. This is missing in traditional business plans but it is one of most important parts of the social or environmental entrepreneur's plan. Clearly outling the positive benefits of your business is important for attracting project financing and raising awareness about your business. Be as specific as possible and provide numbers if possible to support the forecasted impacts.
- Strategy and Implementation: Give a description of how your business will operate. This should include roles and responsibilities, timelines, budgets and deliverables. Make sure your plan shows how it can measure it's results.
- Management Team: Describe the organization and the key management team members.
- Financial Analysis: Here is where you outline your financial plan. Describe how much funding/financing your business currently has, as well as how much is needed to ensure its launch and ongoing success.
Build your plan, then organize it. It is not necessary to put the elements together in this order, as they will come together as you build your plan. Your plan should contain these basic elements, but it can be tailored to suit your particular venture.
Sample Business Plans
Please submit good examples of business plans, so that other users can learn from them.
