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so I'm sure you've asked yourself this question many times and I have to do you need a business plan to start your nonprofit do you need a business plan to start any business and you will probably get mixed answers every single time so today in this video I want to talk to you about when the right time to use a business plan would be and how to set your business plan up how many pages it should be now these are just some of my tips on how I think you should approach a business plan for your nonprofit or your for purpose business so thanks for watching the social life the place to be for entrepreneurs or the purpose let's jump right in so when you think about a business plan you probably think of like a 35 page document that's huge with all the information about your business and all these things but when you start to think about your business you realize that you really don't have much of a business you make 35 pages worth of information but when you want it when you really think about a business plan trying to think of it more as like a research paper more so than how your business is actually going to be set up because there is a lot of learning that happens when you are setting up a business and you don't know everything right off the bat you don't know you know how much money you're gonna bring in you don't quite even know really how your projections are going to come about like so in a normal business plan you would have about ten items and I'm going to show you those ten items for creating your own nonprofit because I feel like these are some of the best items that you should have in your business plan if you're creating a non-profit first before we move into that I want to talk to you about when you would probably need a business plan because you will get mixed answers on that some people will say you don't need a business plan at all and some people will say absolutely you need a business plan you're crazy if you don't have one so I'm gonna tell you where the middle ground is when I was starting my nonprofit I actually just wrote up on my computer a few things about my nonprofit so that if someone if I was talking to someone I knew all of the basics that I needed to talk to them about like you know we were gonna raise money by crowdfunding we were going to have a mission of doing X Y & Z and the reason for starting my story was this and where we were gonna get the kids from how we were going to ask for donations like all of those types of things I put those types of things in my document and really I think putting the term business plan on a document really is what makes it something huge and scary and but what I want you guys to know is more than anything your business plan is there to help you more so than to do anything else for your business it's not obviously going to make your business work and that's why a lot of people say just start and you can pivot and you can test and you can do all those things once you get started so before you go to create your business plan you need to know why your business plan is there so that you have some of the key elements in there for when you need your business plan so I have five main reasons why you may want to create a business plan the first one is if you're going up for fiscal sponsorships fiscal sponsors really need to know why and how they would be helping you how you have this plan set up they're planning on taking you under their 501 C 3 so they want to make sure that you actually know what you're doing you have a plan for what you're doing and you've thought through some key elements of your nonprofit the next reason is board members now this is one of your most basic reasons so when you go to ask a board member to join your board you want to make sure that you really do have everything thought out and they're coming into something that's not you know a mess they want to make sure that the person that's at the helm of this ship really does know what they're doing and they really have thought through most everything that they need to to get this nonprofit going so that's one of the biggest pieces I would say if you do nothing else I would at least create a one-page just for your board members for recruiting board members to add into your corporate binder all of those things just so that you have that information for people and also when you go to speak to others about partnerships for your nonprofit you'll want to have a one-pager of like this is what this is what we do and this is why we do what we do and I'll get to those elements later in the video the next reason is for professionalism when you walk in somewhere anywhere and you're talking about your nonprofit or you're talking about your purpose or anything you're doing and it really does give an air of professionalism when you can walk in and say hey this is my business and this is what we do even if it's nothing more than like notes for you to be able to speak about your nonprofit and have that information there as people are going to ask you some of these questions that you will have in these key elements that I'm going to explain later in the video the last thing and I think probably the most important piece of having a business plan of any sort is for people to understand your purpose and to understand you know your reasoning behind creating this business because if there are like 20 other businesses doing the same exact thing you're doing then they're gonna wonder like did you do any research to figure out how you're going to be different like what's your value proposition how are you standing out how is your brand any different than this brand and what is your nonprofit do that this nonprofit doesn't do and there are lots of different questions that will come up but if you have it all in your business plan you don't have to worry about any of that so try not to think of your business planning as a requirement try to think of it more from the perspective of this is going to be a helpful tool for me the other reason that you want to also have a business plan is if you're planning to do funding and you want to get a source of funding you really need to be able to show people where those funds are going and you you if you're planning to go to a bank you absolutely need a business plan that will be a requirement and there are specific business plans set out for asking for funds or loans or any sort of banking that you might need to do for your organization so this is a very basic business plan this is not going to be a business plan with elements that will help get you through any sort of loans or anything like that because my goal is really just to give you guys a basic understanding of what should go in a business plan so that you can use it for other reasons in your nonprofit to help you along with just getting out there and explaining your nonprofit and what you do so let's move into the tips and what I have for you guys as far as the elements so this basic business plan will probably be about 1 degree pages so I would say that your first thing that you should have in your business plan would be your purpose statement or your main goal so why are you doing this why did you create this business what is your goal with this business how will we know when you've achieved your final goal your final objective that is a huge place to start basically giving a summary of your business and why you decided to create this your purpose statement all of those things so you'll want to have that as your first piece of your business plan the second piece you're going to want to have of your business plan is your mission statement your mission statement is obviously critical so your mission statement will not be your purpose statement and it will not be your main goal your purpose is sent essentially your why and your main goal is how do we know that we've actually closed so sometimes you guys will hear me refer to this as your vision statement how will we know that we've achieved our goal and the nonprofit or your business is no longer needed because everyone has whatever it is that you were selling or creating or trying to fix right the need is fixed that's when you know that's your purpose statement now your actual mission statement is what are you actually doing what is your mission I'm my mission is to help kids under the poverty level gain access to extracurricular activities I'm just saying anything so maybe that is your mission statement now if your mission statement is on there and your purpose statements there and you've got your main goal and all of that's there the next thing you'll need is your keys to success people need to know how they would be able to benchmark that you are hitting the milestones that you've said you're going to hit so maybe you're going to create an event that raises $50,000 so that you can put 50 kids through or however you're planning on having your keys to success I would have at least 1 to 5 there and that just helps people show that you've thought through the process you're not just depending on someone to give you funds then you'll make whatever happen no your you have a thought process and you have a way to structure both your marketing plan and your fundraising plans and those are key those are very important now when you first start up you may not have a marketing or fundraising plan because you may not actually know what you're going to be getting from your marketing and fundraising and how you're going to do things yet because you're still trying to figure that out but you can still write it up and write all of that down I wrote mine up and I sent it to other people and when I talked to my board about it they would find kinks in it they'd say hey like that doesn't really make sense or you'd actually be losing money if you did it this way or whatever and that's what your board is therefore that's what having these advisors and people that are supporting your mission that's what they're there for to kind of bounce things off of them and give some true advice let them help advise your program so that you're not just trying to do it on your own because you will miss things so don't feel like you can do this by yourself it's a very difficult thing to try to do so be sure that you always just write it up whatever ideas you have write them all down some will be not so great and some will be fantastic and some are just workable like you can work with them the next thing you want to do is write up some sort of industry analysis now what this means is you're going to want to look around in your industry and with the demographic that you're trying to help who else is in that space that's doing something similar to you or working with that same demographic you'll want to kind of look at what else is out there benchmark your own idea against what else is out there because that helps people see like oh I guess there is a need for this it helps show what that need is and how you're going to fill it number five is to have a target audience that you have segmented okay so when I say that that means you're going to have a few different target audiences when you are creating your business you might have for a non-profit you'll have something like donors you'll have something like sponsorships and you'll have something like event planning or partnerships that you want you'll have a lot of different segments so try to write out those segments for anyone who's looking at your proposal or your business plan so that they can see that you've thought through and kind of where you're thinking about getting some of these funds from and who you're planning to target so then they can see your organization come together when you're writing these business plans you're kind of just like painting a picture for other people you may not be perfect right away but once people start looking at and I give you your feedback and all of that stuff you will have a very polished business plan by the time you're ready to truly fully launch or once you're ready to launch your first fundraising plan whatever it is so that moves me on to my next one number six now your marketing plan could be as basic as I'm gonna use social media to put my information out there I'm going to have a website I'm going to have ambassadors you know to talk about the nonprofit I'm going to link up with schools and they're gonna help me advertise but like people need to know what's going on in your head and what you're thinking about how you're going to get this information out there some people don't have a marketing brain and they don't have that in them already to be thinking about marketing so you have to sometimes create that mental picture for people so that you can show them that you've already thought through a lot of this stuff and how they can use it next is your fundraising plan you're going to want to create some sort of fundraising plan just kind of running out if we had this much money we could do X Y & Z we could fund this many children we could we could create an event that's going to bring in this much money if we had this many participants you'll want to kind of give an outline of what it really and truly I mean your business plan truly is just like an outline of what you're thinking honestly I think that's how I approach my business planning so I want you guys to do the same number eight is your organizational structure so what is the structure of your organization are you going to have do you want to have staff do you need staff are you planning to work off volunteers do you want to are you going to be the executive director how many hours a week are you planning to put in how many hours a week do you think is required are you looking for staff how much would you want to pay that person all of those things just should be thought through that's all this is not set in stone these are just ideas and they are thought through so that when you go to talk to your board members and you go to speak to other people who want to support your organization you will have a one two three page sheet that they can either say hey let me look over that or you know let me think about sitting on your board do you have something I can read through I felt like that was one of my downfalls when I was starting my nonprofit is I wish I had something like this when I was originally starting I just had a one pager and most times I would just sit with someone and talk to them about my organization but giving someone a little bit of extra time to think through whether they're gonna be on your board or not is is wise it's wise because if you can give them a one two three page sheet of your business plan and let them see that hey I have actually thought through this I really do want to move forward is there some place or some way you think that you would like to be involved they have options they can look through your organizational structure and say hey you know what I know how to do X Y & Z I'd be happy to help you with your organization in this way but I can't necessarily sit on your board or you know I really would like to sit on your board and I might know someone who can do this job as your organizational structure as a volunteer or whatever you're looking for so if you're thinking about using interns or thinking about using a volunteer whatever those things are go here and write all of that number nine are projections or need so it's always good to know if you're planning on working with you know poverty-ridden schools or you're planning on working with you know homeless or whatever what are those statistics that show that there is a need and who is where is the need lacking that you're going to fill so just like I wrote in your industry analysis that's more looking at different types of organizations that fit alongside yours better either helpful to yours or that are directly competing with yours or that are filling the need like yours are and how you're different like what's your competitive advantage but when I'm talking about your projections in need I'm talking about we want to know how many homeless are there that you're try to help how many people are what's that actual need we want to see like true statistics on what the actual need is and if those projections are going up in 2000 you know 25 or whatever we want to know that right because that shows that you actually have an organization that is needed and you are filling a true void so it's really hard to argue its backs but this is a great part to put facts into because if people do want to look and see like is it really a need you have something that already backs that up financial needs so your financial needs this is a great place to put your wish list you know like if you need a website if you need a building you need anything you put it all in this area your financial needs and it's good to add some sort of a budget you probably won't have much of a budget because you won't know how much you can bring in but you can always do an estimate so you can do an estimated budget this is how much you know staff would be paid this is how much you know how many fees we would take out this is how much we would need to actually get true results so to fund you know a certain amount of kids or a certain amount of programs or whatever you would break all those things down under your financial needs and then also add your wish lists in there in the back to kind of show this is what we do actually need to make the program work because I'm telling you oftentimes people do read through these things and they do want to help you and it may not be in the way that you're asking but if they don't have any other options to help you then that's it's a little tough right I want to make sure that that this is a tool that's going to work for you so don't be too don't be too serious about you know everything that's going in here but try to be as thorough as you can try to think through all of these areas because it can be a super helpful tool so those are my 10 tips on the few elements that you should be adding in to create a 1 to 3 page business plan for your business and one of the things I really want you guys to just keep in mind is that this is a tool to help you more so than anything else is a tool to help you so you really want to be as thorough as you can you want to think through as much as you can and it's a great way to get everything on paper so that you can share that with other people it's even good you could even have this on your website if you wanted to so I hope that helped you guys those are my ten elements that you need for a business plan and I look forward to seeing you guys soon if you are not signed up for the social life Diaries go to Ashley Tate comm and sign up there so you can join over 200 other entrepreneurs with a purpose who are unleashing there's something amazing in our social life tribe and I will see you guys soon thank you again for watching bye guys