Social enterprise - business planning skills gateway

Welcome to our gateway to business planning skills in social enterprise.  As with any business, there is a lot to consider when setting up a social enterprise. Whether you're thinking about starting up, or have already registered as a social enterprise, there are always further considerations to visit and revisit.

We have tried to make the process of learning about different aspects of social enterprise easier by breaking it down into twenty bitesize chunks.  Each of the links below leads to a different page providing an introduction and a list of useful websites and documents which we have found particularly useful from the children, young people and families sector, and, where appropriate, in the wider business sector.

There are a couple of key documents which we refer to throughout this gateway, which we believe are worth taking a look at for their utility in many aspects of building successful social enterprises. They are:

A business planning guide to developing a social enterprise [pdf 3.57Mb] – Forth Sector

It’s the Business – Sure Start / Yorkshire and Humberside Business Support Network

Click on the links below to find out more about business planning in social enterprise.

  1. Defining the service and what you have to offer
  2. Understanding the market place
  3. Strategic planning
  4. Business planning
  5. Choosing a legal structure
  6. Business planning tools (e.g. SWOT, PESTEL analysis)
  7. Policies, procedures and HR issues
  8. Safeguarding children including CRB
  9. Financial risk assessment and contingency planning
  10. Partnership and collaborative working
  11. Financial planning
  12. Feasibility studies
  13. Full cost recovery
  14. Monitoring and evaluation
  15. Quality assurance
  16. Replication and franchising
  17. Forecasts and projections
  18. Governance
  19. Role of lawyers and auditors
  20. Marketing and branding

We have also produced a guidance document to download. It covers twelve of the key areas to consider when moving into social enterprise with tips on thinking it through.

Thinking through social enterprise [pdf 218kb]

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For more information on VCS Engage's work in this area, visit Our Work // Social enterprise.

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