Sample Business Plans for Inspiration

[NorthVanIsle Artist Collective]

Below is a collection of PDF examples of real business plans for a variety of similar businesses to give us some insight and inspiration!

These plans are very detailed and provide great insight into the inner workings of a Wilderness Retreat Centre, Wellness & Healing Centre, Food/ Catering and Event Venue/ Weddings/ Retreats etc., Farms, and Summer Camps/ Hobbie School.

We are each going to have our own unique passions and we may want to team up with other individuals who share similar passions or interests.  For ex. a few of us may want to start either a for-profit or not for-profit healing centre and lease a building from the collective to operate out of.  Other people may have no interest in a wellness centre but they would like to operate a art class, cooking class, wedding, music event, eco-tourism experience etc.  Every time a part of our collective uses the property for a business making opportunity then a portion of their operating cost would be used to lease the property (from the business that they are also part of).  Once we are mortgage free, excess property income would be redistributed to the collective. And that is just one proposed way of doing it we are still exploring all of this. Some ideas may not be feasible enough to make it worth while to the collective.

From the research we have done into similar business models; Eco-Tourism and Wellness Retreats are a multi-billion dollar industry that is really growing rapidly right now. When you have a facility that can provide; catering (and food grown on site), accommodation, leisure activities, spa/ wellness treatments, etc.  then you have a gold mine!!

If we spent 5-10 years running this property in this way we could easily retire from the income we would generate.  A facility like this is capable of bringing in multiple millions in profits/ year.  It just depends how frequently we want our property being used in this way and how much of the property we want to give up for these various "public endeavours". The collective would have to debate, discuss, and vote on how many weddings, retreats, workshops, festivals, etc. we were willing to put up with in a year and see if the benefits of how much of our cost of living we could shave off would counter that.

Also consider that it might end up being only 1 dorm building and the gym that get used by the public to pay for operating cost and the rest of the property is gated off for private residents. Ex. Renting the gym and outdoor basketball court to a Pickelball association could cover half our yearly mortgage. It doesn't have to be the whole property, all the time, forever.  We understand everyone appreciates their privacy so we could set it up in a way to respect that.  They can also be temporary leases where after a 1,3,5 year term we can re-evaluate.

There are many possibilities and you don't have to be involved in every or any aspect of this outside of the intentional community.  However our hopes are that we can create a facility to harbour peoples gifts and talents and help share them with the world by attracting the right people into this collective that are searching for a group to support them in their unique endeavours.

Having different business's and non-profits leasing buildings/land for their endeavours would also bring many benefits to the collective:

1) Extra protection legally and financially
2) Access to grants and subsidies
3) Reduction in property taxes
4) Creates jobs for us an others in our community (you can still be a paid employee within a non-profit)
5) Helps us get donations and funding right from the start.
6) If we can get enough donations to buy this property straight from the owner we could avoid the bank and their millions in interest payments.

Note** This would be separate from the co-creative spaces that we would all have unlimited access to as members.  Ex. Founders/ members would not have to pay to make art in the communal art studio but if they wanted to do an art show and sell art out of the gym a percentage of the proceeds would go back to the collective (which also goes back to them)

Whether we go for-profit, not for-profit or a combination of both, these businesses would help us pay off our mortgage, maintenance and operational expenses quicker so it is very important that we take the time do research into these different options and see if we have teams within our intentional community that are interested in taking them on. As mentioned, some would overlap like a wedding, wilderness or wellness retreat being supported by our catering/cooking team, farming team, event organizing team and healing team. Room for everyone to earn a living within our own system if they wanted to.  Or create jobs for people outside our community.

Here are the Business Plans we have been studying, you can download them as pdfs:

Wellness Center Non-Profit  https://wisebusinessplans.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/WBP_Sample_Non-Profit.pdf

Summer Camp (non-profit incorporation) focus on wilderness; they also team up with aviation schools and run specific certification classes for at-risk youth and other demographics. https://www.charactercamp.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Business-Plan-2020_7-9.pdf

Creekside Farms Weddings/ Event   https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=hcssp

Restaurant Business Plan   https://wisebusinessplans.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Snack-shop-sample-business-plan-2021-2022.pdf

Coffee Shop Business Plan   https://wisebusinessplans.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Coffee-shop-sample-business-plan-2021-2022.pdf