There is no single set formula for a Business Plan and they need to vary according to the nature of the organisation and the activities or services they cover. If you need to produce one for a funder or lender check their guidelines as they may ask for the information in a specific format. Most plans will include:

• a ‘mission’ or ‘vision’ statement. These statements became popular during the 1990s and are simply a very short and snappy expression of your organisation’s overriding goal(s). They can be useful (for example providing a snappy sentence or ‘strap-line’ for your publicity materials) but they are not essential. On the other hand, the process of developing a mission statement can be useful in checking that all those involved in preparing it share a common vision.
• a brief statement of your aims. This statement needs to reflect the aims of the organisation as expressed in your organisation’s constitution — but it can be a shorter, simpler version and it might emphasise key priorities for the period covered by the plan.
• a brief description of your organisation, its turnover, history and key achievements.
• a description of the needs you aim to address including factual evidence demonstrating that your organisation and its activities are needed.
• a brief summary of the services or activities you run now and are planning to run during the period covered by the plan. Include statements on what makes them special and distinctive, and information explaining how they meet the needs described above.
• a detailed ‘operational plan’ for the period covered by the plan. This is where you provide the details on precisely what you intend to do. It will include things like the numbers of service users or customers you will serve, details of the skills your staff, volunteers and committee members bring to the work, details of other resources you will use (premises, equipment), information on relevant policies, procedures, quality standards and good practice (such as Health and Safety, Equal Opportunities, Complaints, Rrecruitment and Training Policies), and an explanation of your management structure.
• a detailed financial plan for the period covered by the plan including budgets and cash flows for each year. This needs to cover all the costs your organisation will incur and identify where the cash to pay for them will come from. You should show which resources are secured to date and which are yet to be secured, and provide details of all the funders or sources of finance you have already approached or intend to approach.

In addition, your plan might need to include:

• details on how you will monitor and evaluate your work.
• a marketing plan. How will you advertise and promote the services and activities you are planning? Who are your target groups? How will you reach them? How well do you know their needs?
• An environmental plan or impact analysis. Assessing the environmental impact of running an organisation and developing policy and practice to reduce any negative environmental impact is becoming more widely used and some funders will ask for this. It needn’t be complicated. Policies aimed at reducing the use of cars and increasing recycling of office materials might be all that is needed.
• A risk analysis. Again, not all business plans will include this but it a good idea to develop one. This needn’t be complicated – at its simplest it just means listing the main areas of activity and thinking about the key things that could go wrong, assessing how serious this would be and thinking about how you would manage them if they did go wrong.