Shaping your aims and objectives

When getting involved with a community focussed food project, it is really important that you are clear from the beginning what you want to achieve with your project. These may not be clear at the moment, below are a list of questions to help you focus your thoughts. 

Spend some time going through these questions and answering them honestly.

Aims and values of your product

• What values are core to your idea/project?
• What do you hope to achieve with your project?
• Do you want to deliver your idea directly yourself or are you happy for others to do this with you being the owner/manager?

How much time are you able to spend setting this project up, and working on it once it is up and running?

Your role on the business

• Do you want to own the organisation and be the person who decides on how to use the profits and makes all of the decisions?
• Or do you want to share the decision making with a partner, a group of people, a community, or with your beneficiaries/ customers?

How much do you need to earn?

This doesn’t need to be in detail, but is it a full-time income, a part time income, or voluntary? What about other staff and volunteers?