Download Competition Entry Form
Submit your business proposal along with the competition entry form to Tariq Sadiq, Development Director, Downing College.
Deadline: 5.30pm - Tuesday, 19 December 2006

Download Sample Business Proposal

Your outline business proposal should:

1. summarise the nature of the project you have in mind;
2. provide some background to support the investment case;
3. contain an estimate of the amount of funding you believe the project would require from the Fund, recognising that in general the amount available will not exceed £20,000;
4. summarise the financial return in this invested capital that you believe is achievable;
5. highlight the issues that you feel require further clarification before a full business plan can be generated; and
6. identify the members of your project team.

You are not expected to provide a detailed business plan at this stage; the outlines deemed by the committee to deserve further support will be provided with financial and commercial assistance in developing a full business case in a much more formal proposal in the next phase of the challenge.

You should be able to support any statistics, assertions or figures in your outline if requested to do so. The committee will tend to look more favourably on an outline which contains supported facts and figures than one which, however elegantly expressed or enchantingly decorated, relies heavily on subjective opinions.

The attached sample outline business proposal is intended to provide basic guidance only. There is no requirement to deliver your proposal in this precise format, or even in one like it, but you should cover the points it covers. Lengthwise, it is about right, but the statistics in it are inadequately supported (primarily because I made them up).

It is fair to say that the proposal in question would be unlikely to attract further financial support from the committee.

Luke Nunneley