Business Planning

Change is done by people, not to people

These tools and resources are designed to support a conversation within your organisation – your leadership team, whole staff team, board team – that will draw out learning and insight to shape and develop your business plan in times of change.

We know that change is done by people, not to people, so we believe these tools are most useful when you engage with your teams and stakeholders to ensure that you have a collective understanding of where you need to go, and how you’re going to get there.

How to guide

We have complied this short ‘how to guide’ to support you in navigating and getting the most out of this suite of tools

 

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Exercises and Tasks

A suite of tools to explore to support your business planning

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Workshop Videos

A range of videos to watch on the theme of business planning

How to create a business plan for our times Richard Watts

Change Management Richard Watts

Reshaping our working practice Richard Watts, Michele Taylor, Hannah Corneck, Jeanie Scott, Becky Chapman

Specialists on Representation and Inclusion 

Male silouhette

Chris Gorry

Consultant & Coach

Chris Gorry

Consultant & Coach

Hi, I'm Chris. I'm driven by social impact and ensuring arts and cultural organisations are genuinely serving the audiences or stakeholders they are intending to serve. I enjoy working with organisations to develop their Artistic and Operational Co-Creation methods and delivery plans, to ensure equitable and inclusive engagement frameworks. I have experience in leading festivals, producing, local authority creative compact work, programming, youth and community arts in both small project funded organisations and for Arts Council England, National Portfolio organisations. I'm experienced in entrepreneurial approaches, mixed model income generation, scale up and theory of change driven business planning.
I've worked for a number of organisations as both a freelance and employed member of staff including; The Spark Arts for Children, Warts and All Theatre (Founder), Royal & Derngate, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Almeida Theatre, The Point, The Castle Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre.
As a values driven leader, it all comes down to the Vision and Mission for me! I enjoy rigorously evaluating how organisations Vision, Mission and Values are embedded in everything from Governance to PR and marketing. I'm also a theatre director specialising in co-creation, so I love working with all kinds of artists, and have previously led a number of Diversity and Inclusion driven Talent Development initiatives co-ordinating national and international partnerships. Deep down I'm driven to ensure that arts and culture is accessible to everyone, and you'll usually find me exploring a provocation or two, on how to make this industry more relevant and inclusive to places, spaces and people.

Amber Massie Blomfield

Consultant

Amber Massie Blomfield

Consultant

Hi, I'm Amber. I'm passionate about the power of the arts, and I love working with organisations and artists to understand their vision and create the strategies that make them possible. With 16+ years' experience working in theatre, as well as my own practice as a writer, I have a holistic approach and believe firmly in integrating the philosophy and values of the art into every element of an organisation's work. My particular areas of specialism are internationalism, communications and, increasingly, environmentalism. I'm also a supportive mentor for people at the beginning of their leadership journey, a bid writer with an excellent hit rate, and I facilitate events with tenacity and humour.
I've worked with and for organisations like Complicité (as Executive Director), Camden People's Theatre (as Executive Director/Joint CEO), Pro Helvetia, the Albany Deptford, Barbican, Bristol Old Vic, Battersea Arts Centre, Theatre Green Book, Ticketmaster International, Universal Music Group, Trowbridge Town Hall and many more. As a journalist I've contributed to titles including the Guardian, Independent, TLS and The Stage, and I'm author of two books - Acts of Resistance (Footnote Press, June 2024) and Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die (Penned in the Margins, 2018). I have a diploma from the Chartered Institute of Publicists.

Emma Wilcox

Consultant

Emma Wilcox

Consultant

Hi, with thirty years' experience in the cultural and creative industries, my passion and focus is in purposeful placemaking, delivering culture-led regeneration with equity and relevance. I am a strategic thinker with an excellent delivery record, and I work with clients and colleagues flexibly and responsively. With an excellent appreciation of strategy and vision I can analyse information in an organised and effective manner, understand complex issues and quickly propose realistic solutions. I have honed my expertise across a wide range of roles, most recently as the founding Director of Creative Estuary, an ambitious £7.7m programme to transform the Thames Estuary through investment in cultural and creative industries. I have worked as a consultant to local government, and to arts and cultural organisations including Turner Contemporary, Creative Folkestone and Culture Trust Luton. As a Senior Manager at Arts Council England I devised and developed national funding programmes including Creative People and Places. I’m highly skilled in leading ambitious projects with multiple stakeholders, building dynamic and durable partnerships, securing partnership investment and with significant bid writing successes. My leadership style is facilitative and enabling, creating strong highly motivated teams. My work has often been situated in the area between private and public sectors and I am highly accomplished at managing the transition between different organisational cultures, structures and sectors, translating needs into action. I’m firmly committed to equity and inclusion, ensuring that my work enables diverse voices and those with lived experience to shape the most relevant solutions.

Lauren Clancy

Consultant

Lauren Clancy

Consultant

Claire Williams

Consultant

Claire Williams

Consultant

Hi-

Do you have big ambitions but are overstretched? Do you need a critical friend and a kind, helping hand?  If you are reading this you will probably be a brilliant, creative person who is committed to making the world a better place to live in.  What you don’t need is someone to come along and tell you how to do your job.  What you might need is an extra pair of hands to do something you don’t have time to do.  Or you might want someone to help you to take a fresh look at a difficult problem.

I do all sorts.  I’m excited by a well written business plan, a meaningful evaluation, a great funding bid and an inspiring case for support. I love a challenge.  Throw me a ball a ball and I’ll catch it.

I can help you to produce a succinct, jargon free busines plan that will ensure that you stay focussed and on track.  Together we can produce a persuasive Case for Support through demonstrating your social impact.  You might want a hand to review your funding model and to enhance your fundraising strategy.  You might have ambitions to become a truly inclusive company, if so, I can help you produce a step by step action plan that will transform the way you recruit staff and engage with the public.  I can also evaluate a project, a scheme of work or your entire organisation.

As a consultant I have worked with the National Museum of Wales, Welsh National Opera and the National Dance Company of Wales but my specialism is in working with organisations or groups of people who are marginalised or living with discrimination because of neurodivergence, race, religion, sex or perceived status.

It is hugely pleasurable to work with amazing people who work in the arts and heritage sector.

Clare Williams’ empowering training session for our core staff team reminded us that we have to model what we preach, and really helped us to find our own authentic voice and power.  Her style is warm and empathetic with the right amount of challenge, energy and pace.  Clare offers expert, skilled and engaging training and I would wholeheartedly recommend her.  

​Justine Wheatley, Chief Executive, Peak

Clare Williams presented at our January 2020 Congress in New York.  The 500 delegates were beyond engaged in the conversation and the importance of inclusion of divergent artists.  Enlightening would be my description of Clare’s work. 

​David Baile, CEO, International Society of Performing Arts

Reading list

Transitions by William Bridges

Transitions by William Bridges

Transitions by William Bridges