Keeping Up Appearances: A Quick Update

Hello all!

I finally sat down and established a GFGF presence on a few major social media sites. Check them out!
Things are rather sparse now, but once logo design, service projects, and other achievements are completed, these outlets will prove invaluable in marketing Give For Good.

GFGF Facebook

GFGF Twitter

GFGF Tumblr

GFGF Pinterest

~Priya

Onward

I'm happy to write that I've finally finished my business plan! Though I still have some revisions to make and sections that I need to add to, it's great to have a document that I can present to potential donors to Give For Good. I expect I'll be further editing my plan as this project continues.
Now that my business plan is done, I'll be working on showing it to potential donors, such as First Citizens Bank, Country Financial, and Covidien, to name a few. At Mrs. McConaghy's suggestion, I am going to put together a short overview of Give For Good so potential donors don't have to wade through my large business plan document. Next on the agenda is to set up social media accounts for GFGF and work on designing a logo.

Thanks for reading!
~Priya

Putting Meat on the Bones: Business Plan Structure, Pt 2

To pick up where we left off with the parts of a business plan...

3) Marketing Plan

     The marketing plan must identify the target audience of your organization, which can be divided into two categories:  program recipients and program donors. It's important to define and quantify your audience in terms of the services you provide as well as describing the pros and cons of each potential funding source. This section should also describe any other organizations that offer similar services and explain why yours is unique. Trends regarding the needs you want to address should also be included. The most important part of this section, however, is the public relations plan. How will GFGF be marketed? To whom? It is this section that will require some brainstorming.

4) Financial Plan

     This section is mostly composed of a lot of Excel spreadsheets detailing startup costs and financial projections for the next few years, including profits, losses, cash flow, donations, and budget analysis. This expenditure breakdown is important in detailing exactly where any money Give for Good receives would go. How much would be allocated to administrative costs, etc?

5) Additional Documents
 
     This part would include any documents referenced in the body of the business plan plus any papers that could supplement the plan. Some examples could include the foundation bylaws, resumes of board members, studies reinforcing your foundation goals and the needs it plans to serve, support letters from community leaders, and any relevant contracts.


Whew! Thus concludes my summary of business plan structure. Until next time!
~Priya

Putting Meat on the Bones: Business Plan Structure, Pt 1

I must confess that when the concept of a business plan as one of the products of my senior research project was proposed, I was skeptical. Weren't business plans just simple outlines of an organization? Would this really take that much effort? As it turns out, however, business plans are mammoth documents that quite literally cover every aspect of a business. There are few minor differences between the format of a regular business plan and a nonprofit business plan. The major areas of a business plan are the executive summary, organizational plan, marketing plan, financial plan, and additional documents:

1) Executive Summary

     The executive summary must summarize the entire business plan. This is so that a potential donor or benefactor of GFGF can get a quick overview before deciding to read the rest of the plan. It must also include a clear mission statement and highlight why your plan is unique. For a nonprofit, there must also be a focus on the problems you have identified and how you will address them. 

2) Organizational Plan

     In addition to a clear mission statement and a business model, the organizational plan must incorporate how a nonprofit's activities and current resources will support this model and detail an administrative plan with brief profiles of board members. It must discuss any relationships the nonprofit has with other people or organizations as well as the results of the "SWOT" (strengths-weaknesses-opportunies-threats) analysis that I mentioned in the previous post. Finally, the organizational plan should describe organization products/services and the benefits of these endeavors.

I'm working on fleshing out the first two sections (pun intended), but the marketing plan and especially the financial plan are where things get more complicated. We'll pick up with those next time!
~Priya

Pondering

On Friday, I met with my in-school advisor, Ms. McConaghy, to talk about business plan structure and the direction of my project. We discussed different components of a business plan, especially the financial projection section. This involves projecting all foundation costs and profits for the next 3-5 years while accounting for reasonable growth and taking into account factors such as marketing, travel, and operational costs. Because I don't have a building or anyone on payroll, this should hopefully be more simple than the daunting spreadsheets in Anatomy of a Business Plan. However, it's important to have realistic estimates that are logical to potential donors to GFGF and other readers of a business plan.

In accordance with my book, I'm trying to conduct some "strategic planning" to help draft the business summary in the beginning of the plan. This involves "SWOT" Analysis, or strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats planning. Business books certainly have some fancy terms for brainstorming! This targeted approach will aid in articulating to donors why GFGF is unique and why it should be supported.

The hardest part, of course, is figuring out what direction to take Give for Good in. For example, the Marketing section of a business plan requires one to state who the target audience I am trying to reach would be. Do I want to market to the general public, or just corporations? It's certainly something to ponder; I anticipate that going through each of the detailed sections of this business plan will take a lot of thought and ultimately aid tremendously in shaping this foundation.

I found this lecture from Stanford Business School very informative as it pointed out some of the common flaws in standard business plans. Even though they aren't specifically the plans of nonprofits, I still found Mr. Ellis's points useful:

More on the order and structure of a business plan coming soon!
~Priya

First Steps

I've been delving more into the nuts and bolts of running an organization:

1) Logistics: I set up a bank account for the Give for Good Foundation (I even have an official GFGF debit card!) and started a PayPal donation button on the foundation website. Now I can receive monetary donations and use these funds to finance service projects, supplies, and so on.

2) Service: I talked to the director of an orphanage for the deaf and dumb in Shirdi, India about the needs of the institution. He did mention that their current project is building a new dormitory for the children, the estimated cost of which is $20,000.

3) Getting Things in Order: I spoke to a tax CPA about the tax and legal implications of the foundation and to a Covidien-EV3 executive about the possibility of travel fund reallocation. I've also worked on brainstorming elements of my forthcoming business plan, specifically in formulating a clear-cut plan of operations.

Until next time,
~Priya

Learning the Ropes

The first week is flying by! Functioning on eight or more hours of sleep was a long-forgotton feeling until now. Anyway, in order to familiarize myself with the world of nonprofit management, I made an excursion to Barnes&Noble and the library to stock up on informative books. Here are the highlights:

This book is very helpful in explaining the format and content of a proper business plan in detail. The section on nonprofit plans is especially useful.

I'm fortunate that the arduous paperwork process of starting a nonprofit has been completed, so some sections of this book are no longer relevant. However, it contains interesting and beneficial tips on fundraising and marketing a 501(c)3 organization, as well as information on details such as bank accounts and tax specifics.

This book is interesting in that it focuses on philanthropy. It contains valuable information on the relationship between nonprofits and their donors and the technicalities of these relationships.












Until next time!
~Priya