Lesson – introduction

The following lesson is based on Freer Spreckley’s Social Enterprise Planning Toolkit published by the British Council in 2011, and on the Finance Toolkit for BAME Social Entrepreneurs by Red Ochre and the Social Enterprise Coalition.

When starting a social enterprise, it is likely that you will need to raise finance. The social enterprise plan will have to cover a period of 3 to 5 years and state the practical steps required to achieve the planned objectives. In this lesson we will go through the fundamentals of basic finance.

Firstly, we are going to focus on how to account for costs. Then we will discuss the relation of loss and profit by composing a Profit and Loss Account and a Cashflow Forecast. Finally you will learn about ways of financing and its effect on stakeholders.