Business Plan
Proposal prepared by Team Awesome
Members:
Julio Amador III
Sari Dallal
Khaled Kadah
Darci Pauser
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Goal 3
Ownership and Legal structure 3
Founding Team 3
Our Mission: 4
Market Analysis 5
Services offered 5
Service demand 5
Niche, Size and Locations 5
Services promotion 6
Promotion strategies 6
Sources of Funding and Strategies for Fundraising 6
Financial Management 7
Operations 9
Syracuse Office 9
Bethlehem Field Office: 10
Hiring Process 11
Workplace 11
Concluding Statement 12
Appendix: Financial Projection 13
Introduction
EduAccess is a new NGO dedicated to helping students and other people with physical disabilities reach their full potential by providing them with access to their schools. In our headquarters in Syracuse, New York, we eagerly seek out partnerships with schools in Palestine to provide ramps for access to school and other education-related buildings.
Goal
Our goal is to advocate, install, and sustain workable and convenient elevators, railings, and ramps in educational institutions. We will do this in partnership with governments, private institutions, schools, other NGOs and charitable individuals.
Ownership and Legal structure
As a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization, EduAccess relies on its supporters and is not owned by any individual, government or private organization. Its board members, officers, staff, clients and partners are all stakeholders in achieving its goals.
EduAccess is registed to operate in both the USA and Palestine. It cooperates fully with local laws. Its headquarters are in Syracuse, New York with an office in Palestine. Other offices are envisioned in the future and will comply with local regulations.
Founding Team
EduAccess was founded by four individuals with the passion and dedication to empowering schoolchildren and other people with disabilities so that they can have full access to their schools and facilities.
Trained at the renowned Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, the founders bring with them a mix of knowledge, experience and passion for their cause. They have had experience in dealing with governments, private organizations and individuals and have previous experience in non-profit work.
We believe that we have the edge in providing the service that we want to give. Our team has the necessary connections to work in Palestine and we have made initial partners from schools there which are eager to cooperate with us. We also have the necessary knowledge of working at the international and transnational level to ensure the success of EduAccess projects.
Our Mission:
Founded in 2012, our mission has been rooted in one fundamental idea – access to education for those needing disability-related facilities. Here at EduAccess, we believe that the handicapped can lift themselves above their physical restrictions through education. In recent years, we have witnessed many developing countries drastically improve in their literacy rates, while on the other hand neglecting to incorporate the disabled. In many countries throughout the world, handicap accessibilities are severely limited, malfunctioned, or simply absent. As an organization, we wish to advocate, install, and sustain workable and convenient elevators, railings, and ramps in educational institutions.
As a recently started NGO, we wish to begin this global endeavor by renovating educational institutions in Bethlehem, Palestine. Bethlehem schools fit particularly well within our objective; Palestine is a developing region with the 3rd highest literacy rate in the Arab world despite many of the transitioning obstacles. Likewise, Bethlehem schools need help in providing the necessary accessibilities to the physically handicapped.
In cooperation with city and school governorates, our team will be able to effectively complete projects within constricted time frames and budgets. Once completed, we wish to build on our experiences and expand our goals into other regions throughout the world. We wish to gain your support by providing complete transparency of our effectiveness on our extensive website. For daily updates, please follow us on Twitter (@EduAccess) or Facebook.
Market Analysis
Services offered
EduAccess seeks to provide access to schools to persons with physical disabilities in Palestine. The primary service that we offer is the construction of handicap accessibility options especially wheelchair ramps in Palestinian schools.
Service demand
As of 2009, 4-6 percent of the population of Palestine has physical disabilities; thus, the demand for our services should be high. Since the country is also known to have a high literacy rate, EduAccess will seek active partnership with schools to determine where our services will be greatly needed.
Niche, Size and Locations
The primary business address of EduAccess is at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. Our NGO will also run a small office in Palestine for easier coordination with local school partners and other local institutions.
As an initial strategy, EduAccess will focus on active partnerships with schools through the financing and construction of wheelchair ramps. This will ensure that we will have a niche in the efforts to provide disability services in Palestine.
Services promotion
EduAccess will actively promote its services through intensive networking in Palestine and in the USA. In Palestine, EduAccess will aim to partner with schools, education authorities, local businesses and NGOs. We will tap local media organizations to promote EduAccess and advertise the services that we will be giving to our communities.
EduAccess will maintain a website dedicated to our organization’s mission and vision, our goals and our services. We will also endeavor to provide regular updates so that our friends and partners will know how we are going about the task of helping people with disabilities to reach their full potential.
Promotion strategies
In promoting EduAccess, we will rely on our partnerships with local and international private and public individuals and organizations to fund the construction of our services and raise funds for future activities.
EduAccess will hold an annual fundraising dinner to invite our partners to contribute to our projects. We will also ensure that our activities will be highlighted in local, national and international media and information about EduAccess will be disseminated as widely as possible.
Sources of Funding and Strategies for Fundraising
Our initial funding will be sufficient to finance our operations for the first year. To make our services fully sustainable, we will seek to create a trust fund so that we will have a regular source of income to finance our activities and pay for our personnel.
Specific strategies we will seek to do are:
· In the long term, we will build a trust fund through a combination of individual contributions especially from our board of directors.
· Obtain grants from national and international organizations such as USAID, AusAID, DFID, and other financial institutions to help us in our projects.
· Partner with businesses that are into corporate social responsibility by promoting our advocacy to them and requesting for donations or grants to sustain our activities.
· Annual dinners will be conducted to solicit donations from our board of directors and prominent members of the community.
· Our website will also contain a link for contributions from individuals interested in our work. Credit cards, checks and payment through PayPal will be accepted.
Financial Management
EduAccess will operate on an initial endowment of $ 500,000 given by a generous benefactor. Our first priority is serving our clients. Because of this, we made sure that half our funds went towards direct outputs.
The CEO and the Grants Manager will work together to continuously seek out sources of financing to guarantee the sustainability of EduAccess.
An amount from the initial equity will be set aside to serve as the seed of a trust fund that will sustain our future operations. To ensure sustainability and account for contingencies, we will save over $80,000 from our first operational year in a trust fund. We will provide an incentive of 2% for all funds raised to the grants manager, further assuring our sustainability and growth.
This trust fund will be replenished and grown over time to make EduAccess self-sustaining so that our benefactors can be confident that most of their donations will go directly to where they are needed the most.
EduAccess will also promise that our operations will leave room for growth. For our first operational year, we will focus on providing low-cost ramps to schools. This is an inexpensive and simple solution that will make a huge impact. However, we realize that the possibilities for increased access to education are endless. In our second and third operational years, we plan to provide not just ramps, but also elevators, adaptive computers and even school assistants for students with severe physical disabilities.
Our monthly financial projection can be found in the Appendix portion of this proposal. A summary of the parameters of EduAccess education and finances can be found following this section.
Operations
EduAccess is headquartered in the campus of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. A field office in Bethlehem, Palestine is there to insure the day to day actual working process. Both offices work simultaneously to provide assistance to unfriendly handicap educational facilities in the area of Bethlehem.
Syracuse Office
The EduAccess Syracuse office consists of:
1- CEO
2- Office Manager
3- Accountant
4- Grants / PR Manager
The operating procedure for EducAccess will follow these guidelines:
· biweekly Board of Directors meetings to be updated with the organization’s news, ongoing and future projects in addition to voting on certain decisions that may surface within the course of work.
· The CEO will attend those meeting serving as the liaison for EduAccess; s/he will be responsible for reporting to the board any developments (accountant may attend meetings if necessary).
· The CEO will supervise the entire operation of EduAccess; s/he will spearhead meeting with potential donors, other tasks include constantly reviewing financial records and direct communication and coordination with the Bethlehem Office Director.
· The Office Manager will handle all correspondences for the NGO, scheduling meeting, filing paperwork and making sure of a smooth running administrative environment.
· The Accountant will be the legal financial representative of the organization handling all finances, transactions, funds and filing taxes.
· The Grants / PR Manager will handle the demanding job of working with potential donors and grant searching. In addition, s/he will be handling the PR operations which may include issuing periodicals, news articles and press conferences.
Bethlehem Field Office:
The EduAccess Bethlehem field office consists of:
1- Office Director
2- Office Manager
3- Accountant
4- Engineer / Field Manager
In co-ordinance with the headquarters in Syracuse, the Bethlehem office is set for maintaining the operation in the area of the actual projects’ implementation.
· The Office Director holds the decision making position, direct reporting to the CEO and running the field office. Tasks include signing agreements with the potentially aided educational facilities, weighing in on criteria of the educational institutes’ proposals for aid and reporting recommendations to the CEO.
· The Office Manager handles correspondence of the field office and remains in direct contact with headquarters.
· Accountant is the financial legal representative of the Palestinian office. Tasks may include lots of field work (regular visits to ministry of finance, local city councils, governorate offices and the educational institutes’ financial departments). Smooth financial transactions from the US are some of the main priorities of this position. S/he also coordinates project tenders with sufficient criteria and handles the contractors’ biddings.
· The Engineer / Field Manager is responsible for overseeing the field work done in the education institutions, assuring that every procedure is according to safety standards and regularly meeting with the implementing contractors.
Hiring Process
The Board of Directors along with the organization’s CEO will determine needed posts for running EduAccess operations. The following process will be followed:
· Job offers will be posted in newspapers, online jobsites and in several educational institutions in the US.
· Once having a sufficient amount of applicants, the selection process begins with short listing of candidates based on cover letters and resumes.
· This leads to the next step, personal interviews.
· Once applicant is selected, he/she will be on a 3 month probation period that will lead to a full time contract if employee meets qualifications.
· Once fully hired, employ must agree with the terms and guidelines set by the NGO’s board. Health insurance and overtime expenses will be provided to employees.
· Same conditions apply to the Bethlehem field office, interviews with the board of directors and CEO will be held via video conference.
Workplace
Syracuse University provides an on-campus office that will serve as the NGO’s headquarters, with no charge for rent or utilities. Every employee has his/her own desk equipped with a computer. Office contains all vital appliances; (phones, printer, scanner, copier, and projector). Internet is provided all around the SU campus.
The Bethlehem Field Office consists of three offices and a meeting room. Rent is 200$ per month. Adding 100$ for utilities and internet. Each employee has his/her own desk equipped with a computer.
The office contains all vital appliances; (phones, printer, scanner, copier, and projector).
Organizational Chart
Syracuse