As part of the Stage 1 guidance launched July 2023, we signposted that this fund would require organisations to submit a business plan as part of Stage 2.
In the Stage 2 supplementary guidance, we duly directed all applicants to the Business Planning Guidance available on our website. This guidance sets out the high-level understanding of what a business plan should be and outlines that a business plan covers both intention and delivery, convincingly setting out how the goals are to be achieved and why they are achievable.
The level of detail required to address these appropriately needs to be determined by whoever is writing the plan, but in the business planning guidance there are numerous references to the need for detailed information to be developed as part of the document. Specifically on page 22, it notes the need for delivery details as well as the higher level vision, mission and organisational aims, on page 31, it lists what the contents of the plan should be, and on page 37, it lists the sorts of detailed information that would be expected to be carried in the appendices, including detailed programme plans, milestone plans and specific action plans.
We feel this guidance provides a very clear outline of what a business plan should contain for all applicants.