Nature-based School Business Planning Course

Create a solid business plan to move your nature-based school from dream to reality

Dreaming of opening your own nature-based school, but unsure where to begin? 

This e-course will change that!

Now is the time to move your dream to reality! This e-course on business planning guides individuals and organizations in the development of a written business plan outlining the steps necessary to open their own nature-based school. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know including the most common questions around licensing and other regulations, competitors, staffing, marketing, and more.

With a solid business plan in place, you can open the doors to your nature-based school and have happy children thriving by learning with the natural world.

What’s included

✔ 25 video tutorials (more than 3 hours of content!) walking you through the business planning process

✔ 12 other downloadable written documents with information relevant to each stage of the planning process

✔ 10 worksheets to guide you through decision-making during planning

✔ A downloadable budget template (in Excel) with built-in formulas for start-up, capital, operating, & furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) expenses

✔ Membership in a private FB group for other course purchasers facing similar challenges in opening a school

✔ Access all course materials whenever and wherever you like (And at your own pace!)

course modules 

What you’ll learn

 

Getting started

In the first module you’ll identify the three core components that guide business planning. Then, we’ll guide you through the Go/No-Go Decision regarding planning.

In this module you will identify WHY the nature-based approach is appropriate for your business. We’ll then guide you through researching and listing the available resources in seven different categories (i.e., natural, built environment, regulatory, organizational, financial, deadlines, and potential partners). In this step you’ll also articulate the needs of your customers and identify your target market(s)

Gathering the facts

Making other key decisions

In this third module you will decide on the best model and structure for your business. Will it be a for-profit or non-profit? Then, you’ll generate measurable outcomes to identify success.

Module 4 is where things start to come together. We’ll guide you through completing the plan details including generating the following subsections of the plan:

  • Programming

  • Operating

  • Site and Building

  • Marketing

  • Financial

  • Risk Analysis

Completing the business plan details

Putting it all together

In this step you’ll put all of the pieces together to create thorough, polished written business plan to use to garner investors and other stakeholders.

Your investment

$397

Course facilitators

Rachel Larimore and David Catlin have extensive expertise in business start-up and operation—particularly as it relates to nature-based schools. Since they began working together in 2014, they have helped many individuals and organizations throughout the country in establishing their own nature-based school.

Rachel’s passion and expertise integration of nature into early childhood education for young children’s whole development. She has authored three books including Establishing a Nature-Based Preschool and Preschool Beyond Walls: Blending Early Childhood Education and Nature-Based Learning.  Prior to establishing Samara Early Learning, Rachel founded one of the nation’s earliest nature-based preschools at Chippewa Nature Center (CNC) in Midland, MI. She continued as the director of the program until 2016 when, at her departure, the program served 140 children each year through public and private funding sources. During her time at CNC, Rachel led the creation of a partnership with Bullock Creek Schools to create a nature-based kindergarten and first grade within the public school system.

David has devoted his 35-year-long professional career to the nature center and environmental learning center field. In that time, he worked for the Missouri Department of Conservation, helping to plan and launch the agency’s nature center network for six years and later running its Springfield Conservation Nature Center for a decade. He then signed on with the National Audubon Society oversaw start-up of 16 new nature center facilities across the country—evaluating sites, facilitating strategic and business planning, selecting architects and exhibit design teams, training staff, and serving as an in-house resource for problem-solving and question-answering. Since 2015, he has done similar work for nature centers across the U.S. through his firm David Catlin Consulting LLC.