No Business Experience

"I don't know anything about business or accounting. I could never write a business plan."

Much of the knowledge and skill necessary for business planning is already a key part of public health agencies and organizations: activities like needs assessment, demographics research, partnering. You already have some of this information and know how to get more as needed. If you have recently completed a community health assessment such as MAPP, you have already written several chapters of a business plan and identified your key partners.

It's true that many people in public health have never taken a finance class. What you do have is more important: experience with public health. The key to a solid finance section in your business plan is that you are able to make good assumptions. If you know what things cost, if you know what resources a program will need, and if you know something about your target audience's behavior, the rest is easy.