What are business plans for?

Business plans are far more than written documents, which, in certain situations, can support a grant application to a potential funder. Good quality business plans can:

• Help organisations to define their objectives and targets in detail
• Encourage them to gather fresh knowledge about their service users
• Provide a detailed blueprint for developing projects and activities, and the means to monitor progress
• Provide valuable written information about your work and objectives for new staff, volunteers and trustees, and for external partners
• Help to promote your activities with certain groups in the community – e.g. local councillors and individual local authorities, assembly members and local business people