You've put all the necessary processes in place (such as a constitution, bank account and a management committee).  What you need to start thinking about now is how to develop your group to become more sustainable.

There are a number of areas that you need to start thinking about: 

• Policies
• A business plan
• Project planning 
• A fundraising plan

Policies

Policies enable you to establish a better structure

Policies shape all important decisions and activities. They are rules, principles and guidelines that an organisation’s management adopts to reach its long-term goals.

Procedures are the steps employees/volunteers conduct in day-to-day operations to ensure that what they do reflects and supports existing policies. They identify the key activities and provide a general strategy for decision-makers on how to handle issues as they arise. They describe acceptable and unacceptable choices and behaviour, and set a context and boundaries within which to develop procedures.

Essential policies and procedures to have for your group

As a minimum, all organisations should have the following:

• Health and safety policy (if you have five employees or more, you’re legally required to have a health and safety policy)
• Sickness absence policy and procedure
• Annual leave procedure or arrangements
• Grievance and disciplinary procedure
• Equality, diversity and inclusion policy
• Data protection policy
• Safeguarding policy.

NCVO (the National Council for Voluntary Organisations) is a national support organisation for small charities and voluntary organisations. It has a really useful website with guidance on a wide range of topics, including developing policies and procedures. Find out more on the NCVO website.

Acas (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) is an independent public body that receives funding from the government. It gives employees and employers free, impartial advice on workplace rights, rules and best practice. Its website includes free template policies, letters, forms and HR templates. Find out more on the Acas website.

Business Planning

What is a business plan?

A document that describes an organisation’s current status and plans for the future.  It describes a business, its objectives, the market it is in and its financial forecasts.  A number of people may request to see your business plan at some stage, for example, banks, external investors, grant providers and potential partners. A business plan should not be viewed as an occasional document.  It should be updated every year. 

The benefits of having a business plan

• Helps you to spot potential pitfalls before they happen
• Structures the financial side of your business efficiently
• Focuses your development efforts
• Works as a measure of your success
• Attracts funding and investment.

What a business plan should include:

• An executive summary – an overview of the business you want to start.  This is the most important part of your business plan.
• A short description of the business opportunity – who you are, what you plan to sell or offer, why, and to whom.  You must be able to clearly describe what your business does, whether you are writing the business plan for your own purposes or if you want other people to provide funds through investments or loans.
• Your marketing and sales strategy – why you think people will buy what you want to sell and how you plan to sell to them.  You should define your market, your position in it and outline who your competitors are.  What market research has been undertaken?  You need to demonstrate that you’re fully aware of the marketplace you’re planning to operate in and that you understand any important trends and drivers.
• Your management team and personnel – set out your own background and skills, and the structure and key skills of your staff etc. 
• Your operations (premises, producing your goods and services, Management Information System, IT) -  Outline your operational capabilities and any planned improvements.
• Financial forecasts – provide a set of financial projections which translate what you have said about your business into numbers. How much capital you need if you are seeking external funding, the security you can offer lenders, how you plan to repay any borrowings and the sources of revenue and income.

Tips for presenting your plan

• Include a cover or binding and a contents page with page and section numbering
• Ensure it is legible
• Write the plan as if it’s intended for an external audience
• Show the plan to expert advisers
• Edit the plan – get at least two people to read it and check that it makes sense
• Avoid jargon and include detailed information e.g. market research data, financial data in an  appendix at the back
• Other detailed plans e.g. sales plan or staff training don’t need to be included in the plan, but mention that they exist.

A one-page business plan to get you started

A simple business tool, designed to capture on one page various aspects of the organisation – business model, organisational management, financial return and social return – setting out in each case where the organisation is now and where it wants to be soon (in 2 years’ time) and later (in 5 years’ time)

• Business Model – list the primary business activities, services and products, and identify the main service users
• Organisational Development – describe the organisation, including staffing, volunteers, board members, partners and resources
• Financial Return – provide key financial figures, including capital investments, turnover, any surplus and cash flow analysis
• Social Return – identify the social returns arising from the work, for example, increased employment, better health for attendees and improved environmental quality.

Project Planning

Managing Projects

• A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources
• A project is unique in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal
• A project team often includes people who don’t usually work together and may be from different organisations
• All must be expertly managed to deliver the on-time, on-budget results.

Why is it important?

• Having a clear vision of what your project will tackle is fundamental to designing your project’s approach
• Being clear about the needs helps you decide how best to address it or how to complement other projects
• It keeps everyone involved in the project focused on the priorities
• It helps you revise and adapt your project if necessary
• Funders want to know that you have good reasons for your project.

Activities

Activities are the tasks, actions or services that take place in your project to achieve its outcomes.

Why are they important?

• Specify what will be done, how it will be done, who will do it and when in order to achieve your outcomes
• Forms the main content of your project planning
• Determine the resources and budget that you need to run your project
• Activities should be specific and measurable.  The more specific the activities are, the more accurate you will be able to be in setting your budget and planning your resources

Activities – key points checklist

• Does each activity have a direct link to one or more of your outcomes?
• Have you used words of action to describe your activities?
• From your activities, can you develop a project plan showing what you will do, how and by when in order to achieve the outcomes?

The Process

Precise specification for the project

An accurate description of what the project aims to achieve, and the criteria and flexibilities involved, its parameter, scope, range, outputs, sources, participants, budgets and timescales.

Prior to the project’s formal establishment, the project 'terms of reference’ are produced or at least drafted. 

Plan the project (timescales, costs, team etc)

Plan the various stages and activities of the project.  Where possible, involve your team in the planning.  A useful tip is to work backwards from the end aim, identifying all the things that need to be put in place and done, in reverse order.  Use some planning tools to achieve this include brainstorming, fishbone diagrams, critical path analysis and Gantt charts.

• Project timescales and costs – most projects come in late, so don’t plan a timescale that is over-ambitious.  Ideally, plan for some slippage.  If you have been given a fixed deadline, plan to meet it earlier and work back from that earlier date.
• The project team – another important part of the planning stage is picking your team.  Selecting and gaining commitment from the best team members is crucial to the quality of the project, and the ease with which you are able to manage it.  Try to establish your team as soon as possible. 

Communicate the project plan – stakeholders, staff and volunteers

This serves two purposes – it informs people what’s happening, and it obtains essential support, agreement and commitment.  If your project is complex and involves a team, then you should involve the team in the planning process to maximise buy-in, ownership and thereby accountability. 

Also consider how best to communicate the aims and approach of your project to others in your organisation and wider network.

Involvement and communication are vital for cooperation and support.  Failing to communicate with people is a common reason for arousing suspicion and objections, defensiveness or resistance.

Agree and delegate project actions

Your plan will have identified those responsible for each activity.  Activities need to be very clearly described, including all relevant parameters, timescales, costs and deliverables.  Use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound) objectives to help you delegate tasks properly. 

Managing the project team – leading and motivating

Manage the team and activities in meetings, communicating, supporting, and helping with decisions.  Praise loudly, blame softly.  One of the big challenges for a project manager is deciding how much freedom to give for each delegated activity.  Tight parameters and lots of checking may be necessary for inexperienced people who like clear instructions, but this approach would not be suitable for experienced, entrepreneurial and creative people.  Look out for differences in personality and working styles in your team. 

Face to face, when you can bring team members together, is generally the best way to avoid issues and relationships becoming personalised and emotional.

Managing the budget

If a project goes wildly over-budget, it will not be considered a success, even if it’s delivered on time and meets users’ needs.  That’s why project managers need to manage their budgets. 

• Continually forecast the budget – a project run without frequent budget management and reforecasting will likely be headed for failure.  Frequent budget oversight prevents the budget from getting too far out of hand. 
• Regularly forecast resource usage – just as the budget needs to be constantly revisited to keep it on track, you need to do the same for resource usage, since the people working on a project contribute to its cost.  Project Managers should review the number of people currently working on a project and the project’s future resource needs on a weekly basis.  Doing so will ensure that you’ll fully utilise the resources you have and that you have the right resources ready for the rest of the project. 
• Keep the team informed – always keep the project team informed of the project budget forecast.  By keeping the team informed of the budget status, they will be more likely to watch their project charges and far less likely to charge extra ‘grey area’ hours to your project (those are the hours that they know they worked but aren’t sure what they were working on). The two articles below give more detailed information.

Managing the risk issues and change on the project

A risk represents an uncertain event that could have an effect on the project objectives.  This uncertainty is measured in terms of the probability of the risk and the possible impact the threat or opportunity might have on the project. 

• Identify – risks need to be identified and recorded in a risk log/assessment.  Those people involved in the project have the responsibility of informing the project manager of any risks that may have an impact on the project’s objectives.
• Assess – once identified the PM should seek the support of appropriate people in order to ascertain what the likelihood of the event occurring and its impact of the event. 
• Control – managing that risk through planning suitable responses to manage that risk.
• Respond – responses to risks are two types.  Proactive (implemented regardless of the risk occurring or not and often aimed at avoiding or reducing the chance or it ever occurring) and Reactive (implemented once the risk has occurred).

Check, measure and review project performance

Check the progress of activities against the plan.  Review performance regularly and at the stipulated review points, and confirm the validity and relevance of the remainder of the plan.  Adjust the plan if necessary in light of performance, changing circumstances, and new information, but remain on track and within the original terms of reference.  Be sure to use transparent, pre-agreed measurements when judging performance.

Identify, agree and delegate new actions as appropriate.  Inform team members and those in authority about developments, clearly, concisely and in writing. Plan team review meetings.  Stick to the monitoring systems you established. 

Completing the project

At the end of your successful project, hold a review with the team.  Ensure you understand what happened and why. 

• Reflect on any failures and mistakes positively, objectively and without allocating personal blame.
• Reflect on successes gratefully and realistically.
• Write a review report, and make observations and recommendations about follow up issues and priorities. 

Evaluating the project

Evaluation is more than just gathering data.  It is a picture of your project’s impact and provides a resource for planning new projects and making funding bids.

Evaluation can help organisations to make improvements.  Learning from past work should help people to develop more effective projects in the future.  Evaluation of projects provides evidence that the project achieved a certain end or did what it was supposed to do.

When planning evaluation, you need to ensure that the project or service you are designing has clear and measurable objectives. 

It is also necessary to ensure that accurate monitoring information is being collected for your service in order to demonstrate its performance.

Fundraising - Getting Started

All groups need some money to carry out their services or activities. Without that money, your group won’t be able to develop, or you may cease to exist altogether.  So, although you would probably rather get on with the ‘real’ work of running your group, you also have to spend some time planning and raising funds.

• Raising money is best regarded as a central part of your group’s activities.
•  It shouldn’t be an afterthought, and it shouldn’t be tacked on to the Treasurer’s job.
• Nor should it be sidelined to one or two people who are given the job of being the fundraising committee and left to get on with it while everyone else does the more exciting work.
• If everyone in your group, or on your committee, takes fundraising seriously and gets involved in thinking it through, then you are much more likely to be successful. And you might even find it fun!
• Once the whole group has decided what money needs to be raised, by when, and how, then the actual job of raising it can be allocated to a smaller group.  But make sure that they report back regularly on progress.

Planning

Raising money can take quite a long time.  Most funders work to strict timetables.  Local authorities and government bodies normally only consider applications once a year.  Some charitable trusts only meet once or twice a year.

Some special funds only invite applications every 3 years.  So, as a general guide, we would advise you to apply for money at least 6 to 9 months before you actually need it.

Once you get going ,you should get into the habit of planning your fundraising needs two years ahead. This is especially important if you are employing workers.

Record keeping

• Keep a record of all the funders you approach, with the dates that you approached them and the outcome.
• This is useful information for the future - giving you an idea of who you can go back to and when.

Equal opportunities

Ensuring equality of opportunity and access should run through everything you do, and it is something that an increasing number of funders will ask you questions about.  Is membership of your group and access to your activities or services open to everyone in the community you are set up to serve?

• For instance, if you are running a drop-in centre, is the building accessible to people with disabilities, such as those using wheelchairs?
•  If you are providing a service to clients in a diverse area, do you have workers or volunteers who can speak the community languages?

Some legal considerations

Before you start applying for money, you will need to consider whether you need any of the following:

• To become a registered charity
• Last year’s accounts
• Insurance
• Meeting health and safety requirements.

Who to approach

You may have to approach different funders for different aspects of your proposal.  As a general rule of thumb, local authorities and other governmental sources are more likely to fund salaries and ongoing running costs, charitable trusts and companies may fund items of equipment or short-term projects and some of the money you can raise yourselves through a variety of means like collections, raffles, and socials.

If you have a funding proposal that contains different elements to it, you may need to break it down into a number of projects and seek funding for each project rather than the whole thing.

Skills

You may think that there is no one in your group, or not enough of you, with the experience or skills to fundraise.  Don’t panic - help is available.  You could send people on a training course, or seek further advice and information. At Community Action, we run training courses for local groups. You can find these on our Events and Training page. We have also included a list of other organisations that can provide support at the bottom of the page.

Once you are armed with knowledge and information, you can get started on your fundraising using the step-by-step process outlined below.  If you approach the task in this logical order, everything will begin to fall into place and feel less daunting.

The Process

Step 1 - deciding what you need

Before you approach people for money, you need to carefully think through your ideas. You need to debate and decide what the issues or problems, or needs are that your group wants to tackle (for example, you could be concerned about isolated elderly people in your area), and why it is important that you tackle it. Then you can decide what you need money for (for example, rent for a meeting place).

These ideas can then be turned into a written funding proposal, which should contain:

• A clear description of the problem, need or issue.
• Evidence in the form of facts and figures or any research to back up your case.
• A list or description of the things your group wants to do to meet this need.
• How you will go about doing these things - what methods you will use.
• Reasons you have chosen these methods - perhaps it has been tried before elsewhere successfully.
• How you intend to measure the success of your proposal.
• An explanation as to how this work or project will fit into the rest of your organisation.
• An account of how you will manage the work - have you got the people, the skills or other resources needed to cope with it.
• How you will manage and keep account of the money.

Having thought through all these things, you need to decide whether you still want to take it on. And if the answer is ‘yes’, then consider how you will demonstrate that you are a credible group, capable of carrying out your proposal to a good standard.

Your written proposal should fit onto one or two sides of A4 paper.

Step 2 - determining how much money you need

Once you've decided what you want to do, you then need to work out exactly how much it will cost - your ‘budget’. You may need to fundraise all the costs or just part of them if you have other income.

• Make sure that your figures are as accurate as possible; don’t guess costs or use old figures. Get estimates, use catalogues, talk to other groups running similar schemes, and check out local pay rates.
• Make sure you don’t undercost the work, as this will lead you into financial problems. But, just as importantly, don’t overcost the work, as this may mean your bid is rejected by funders.
• Make sure you don’t miss out any ‘hidden’ costs like insurance, maintenance, repairs, travel, training, heating, lighting, rent etc.
• Are your costs one-off capital items, like equipment, or are they project costs with a clear start and end date, or are they ongoing, revenue costs, like wages?
• Decide how long you want money for. Is it just a one-off, or do you need money over several years, or even indefinitely?
• Remember to take account of inflation, replacements, and staff pay increases and increments if for more than one year.

Step 3 - drawing up a fundraising strategy

Once you have your written proposal and a budget, you need to plan how you will actually raise the money - this is your ‘fundraising strategy’. There are lots of different funding sources and many ways of raising money. Try to limit yourselves to things you can do well rather than spreading your efforts too widely.

You need to consider:

• Which funders are most likely to be interested in your work.
• When do you need to raise the money by?  It might help to draw up a timetable, remembering to build in time for funders to consider your application.
• Have you got people in your group with the skills, contacts, and time to do the work?  Do you need some training?
• Have other groups done similar work?  If so, find out how they raised their money.
• Could you raise all or some of the money yourselves?
• Is there anyone in your local authority who could help you?

Next Steps

If you have followed and completed these steps, you will now have everything in place to begin searching and applying for funding!

• For more information about finding funding, visit our Funding Advice page
• To search for current funding opportunities, visit our Funding Opportunities page
• You can also join our mailing list to receive our Community Action Derby Newsletters, which include our monthly Funding Newsletter.

 

Further Support

Running a Social Enterprise or CIC in Derby

If you are a social enterprise or a CIC, you can contact Keith Jeffrey from Derby Social Ventures, which is funded by Derby City Council to provide free support. You can read more about the support Derby Social Ventures offers here. You can contact Keith at: keith@socventures.org

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NCVO (The National Council for Voluntary Organisations)

NCVO is a national support organisation for small charities and voluntary organisations. It has a really useful website with guidance on a wide range of topics. It also offers support via a helpline.

Find out more at: www.ncvo.org.uk/about-us/our-services/support-small-charities-voluntary-organisations/

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Charity Commission

The Charity Commission is the government department responsible for registering and regulating charities in England and Wales. Its website offers a range of guidance to help you run your charity.

Find out more at: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission