Guidance

Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund: business plan checklist

Published 2 April 2025

Applies to England

This checklist contains all the elements required in your business plan when applying for the Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund.

Organisations must ensure that their business plan covers each of the key elements in this checklist.

Governance of your organisation

• Name of organisation
• Address of organisation including postcode
• Lead contact name and details
• Legal status of your organisation, for example charitable company, community benefit society and registration numbers
• Give details if the applicant organisation is part of a consortium, has trading subsidiaries, is a subsidiary of a parent organisation or if there are any other complexities relating to legal structure.
• If a consortium, please detail your lead accountable body, why they have been chosen to be the lead organisation and how the consortium will be managed for example terms of reference or description of agreements in place
• A description of the legal structure of the organisation and consortium members, if applicable
• Information on how the board or management committee is elected or recruited, including succession plans
• Information on current members of the board or management committee with a pen portrait of each
• Details of policies in place to manage the organisation (you will not be required to include copies of policies in your application)
• Evidence of how you manage finances and details of your fraud prevention measures to help protect you from fraudulent activities

Background to your organisation

• How you were founded
• What your organisation currently does

Mission and objectives

• A mission – usually a general statement about your organisation’s purpose 
• Objectives – your organisations current and future objectives

Relationships with the government and other organisations

• Evidence that the organisation or consortium has, or can, nurture an effective working relationship with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and the government
• Detail on current relationship of the organisation or consortium with the government
• Evidence that the organisation or consortium has, or can build, effective relationships with stakeholders throughout England including local government, the police and other organisations
• Evidence that the organisation or consortium has national reach or a credible plan to achieve this

Skills and experience of the organisation

Evidence that the skills and experience of the organisation or consortium will lead to the success of the project, including:

• a summary of previous work undertaken and the outcomes
• evidence of partnership and collaborative working with stakeholders
• the value of previous projects
• brief descriptions of the roles of key personnel, staff, board and volunteers, their relatable experience and qualifications

Ability to garner the trust of Muslim communities

• Evidence of reach into Muslim communities throughout England and evidence that Muslim people have trust in, or can build trust in, the organisation or consortium
• The accessibility of the organisation, including recognition of the diversity amongst Muslim communities
• Your organisation’s commitment to serving all victims of anti-Muslim hate

Activities and services proposed

Detailed proposal for facilitating the reporting of anti-Muslim hate incidents and follow up victim support.

This should include extensive detail on:

• the proposed activities
• the marketing approach
• key milestones
• the use of varied and digital platforms
• staffing requirements

Partner and stakeholder management

Details of how you intend to establish and nurture a network of local and national partners and stakeholders including the government, other public agencies and other faith and belief groups, and how these relationships will help deliver throughout the life of the programme.

This should include, for example:

• data sharing with other organisations such as the police or other authorities
• links to other support organisations to refer victims and complainants

Programme for delivery and mobilisation

• Timetable setting out the key milestones and timescales for implementing activity – this must be summarised in a Gantt chart showing your milestones and project target dates
• Details of how you would be able to start operations quickly, for example:
  • recruitment of key staff
  • the development of the monitoring tool
  • how quickly you could offer a national service

Complainant journey

• Describe the complainant journey for an individual using your service, including:
  • the varied ways of reporting incidents and times the service is available
  • the user experience
  • the process for verifying the complaints
  • your marketing approach
  • follow up support to victims
• Evidence that the reporting process and subsequent support is easy to use and inclusive for a potential complainant and that the user experience encourages people to report

Key success factors

Identification of key success factors for the project, these should be measurable, deliverable, practical and realistic, including:

• availability of reporting systems
• number of complaints received
• percentage of complaints received verified
• percentage of complainants supported
• number of reports analysing data collected and trends identified
• preparation and implementation of communications plan with particular reference to diverse Muslim communities
• internal monitoring and management approach

Technical proposal and team skills

• Further detail of the proposed reporting channels, including an explanation of the technical skills required for implementation
• Explain the case management system that you propose to use, describe how such systems will be specified, procured, coded, implemented, integrated, tested, commissioned and maintained giving detail on the data security and reliability of your systems and evidence the systems suppliers have been identified

Capturing and verifying appropriate data in reporting

• Provide details on the kind of data you would expect to gather related to reported incidents, how you would verify this data, what analysis you would undertake and when
• Detail any other institutions, if any, you would you share this information with, and how would you ensure that data remains protected, secure and GDPR compliant

Budget proposal

• Evidence of the calculations of your budget
• A budget broken down into key lines of expenditure including:
  • staffing
  • systems
  • premises
  • marketing and communications
  • contribution to overheads
  • other supplies and services

The cost breakdown should include VAT unless you can recover VAT. If you include VAT, explain why you cannot recover it. You should consult a VAT advisor if you are unsure of your VAT position.

Cash forecasting

• Income and expenditure budgets for at least 3 years
• Revenue cashflow forecast with detailed assumptions
• Sensitivity analysis to show the impact if your income is lower than expected, costs higher than expected, or both
• The forecast should identify potential inflationary pressures in years 2 and 3
• Explanation of how the project will be financially sustainable in the long term

Risk management

• Information on how you will manage risks
• Risk register listing potential risks associated with your proposal and the actions you will take to mitigate them
• How you will protect against fraud

Reporting to MHCLG

• Describe your reporting approach to MHCLG, including what details you would provide and how often it would be available
• Describe how you would propose to present your data and analysis and demonstrate your geographical reach
• Include how insights, underpinned by the data, could be shared with MHCLG quickly in the event of a sudden change in levels of reports
• How you would develop and share your recommendations for minimisation of anti-Muslim hate based upon your analysis