1440 Sierra Springs Drive
Suite #1210
Bedford, Texas 76021
Website: www.therobinhoodnetwork.com
E-Mail: James@therobinhoodnetwork.com

1-888-206-5661

Business Plan

Executive Summary (2 Pages)

Mission:

The Mission of the Robinhood Network is to serve local communities throughout the Nation county by county, providing products and services through a network of local volunteers that furnish free furniture and other household items to individuals that have suffered a loss due to uncontrollable events that have occurred in their life.

Market Need:

With the ever-changing economy causing an increasing amount of homelessness, personal & family discord from divorce, abuse, and the acts of nature, the need for an Organization that offers the benefit of items needed for an average normal lifestyle increases daily.

Past Accomplishments / Unique Qualifications:

Mr. James Polk originally founded a similar program in Denton County, Texas in 1998. James organized and then operated the organization for almost 3 years.

Financial Plan:       

Revenue for the RHN shall be attained through sources such as grants, private and corporate grants, as well as from individual philanthropists, and local funding available for 501C3 organizations through the local United Way funds and local churches and other community service agencies. Fundraisers of the RHN shall provide some funding as well.

The projected annual budget for the National Operation is as follows:

1^{st yr.} - $2.2 M  2^{nd yr.} - $2.3M  3^{rd yr.} - $2.7M   4^{th yr.} - $2.9M   5^{th yr.} - $3.3M

Management Team:

a)      Director or Operations

b)      Director of Funding

c)      Director of IT/Training

d)      Office Manager

e)      Call Center Staff (50)

f)       Volunteer Board Members (15)

g)      Legal Department

h)      CPA Accounting

Price for Service:

The RHN shall collect, store, and deliver any donated items at no cost to the persons donating as well as no cost to the recipients of the items. Our services are performed by local volunteers from the community that become members of our volunteer directory. There are no membership costs, and the members are not obligated to ever provide service.

Business Milestones:

·        The RHN, originally established in 1998 in Denton County, Texas known as "The Robinhood Archive" incorporated in February 2009.

·        This business plan is presently being presented to funding Foundations throughout the U.S. in order to acquire funds for its National Expansion operations with proposed Corporate Offices located in Dallas
County, Texas.

·        Phase I of the plan is to continue operations in Denton County, establish operations in Dallas, Tarrant
and Travis Counties.

·        Phase II of the plan is to establish one active County within each State of the U.S.; then to continue establishing additional County units within each State until each County in every State is represented with the service benefits.

·        Denton County, Texas is the only current County Unit in operation.

This concludes the Executive Summary
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The RHN Business Plan
Detailed Explanation of the Business:

RHN Motto: “Help Those In Need; It Could Be You Someday”

RHN Philosophy: “We Are Our Brother’s Keeper”

RHN Mission:

            The Mission of the Robinhood Network is to serve local communities throughout the Nation county by county as a non-profit Organization. The RHN provides products and services through a network of local volunteers that furnish free furniture and other household items to individuals that have suffered a loss due to events such as domestic violence, natural disasters, indigence, or have been forced into a level of poverty due to uncontrollable events that have occurred in their life.

The RHN provides (3) primary functions for the benefit of individuals that have suffered events of this nature:

1.      The RHN volunteers solicit, and collect if needed, new and good-condition used furniture and household items from individuals, companies, and groups that enjoy a blessed lifestyle and wish to discard items of this nature with the intent of benefiting someone less fortunate than them.

2.      The RHN stores the donated items in a local facility within each county. The RHN processes the items to a website that makes the items available to any and all clients that have suffered a loss of this type and qualify as a client of any and all non-profit agencies that provide public assistance within that county.

3.      The RHN provides for the qualified individual to either pick the item up at our facility, or if the individual has no means of receiving the item from our facility, our volunteers will be scheduled to deliver the items to the client without charge.

THE MISSION OF THE RHN ORIGINATED FROM THE DIRECTION OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER, GOD;

·         The word “Poor” is used 204 times in Scripture, generally in a favorable light.

·         God provided in the “Law” that “no interest be charged them”, “gleanings (access) of the harvest each year was to be “for the poor”(owners of lands or vineyards were to not harvest every single grape, fruit, or bushel of grain)(a remnant of the crops were to feed the poor), They also were not to harvest the crops of the 7^th year, “its increase was to be for the poor”, and no man was to refuse the poor from its bounty.

·         God’s promise to the poor was that he would “Hear their prayers”, “Help the poor”, “Shelter them”, “Satisfy them with bread”, and “Give them water”.

·         God also promised Blessings to “those who help the poor”.

·         God also warned us that “He that neglects the poor Insults God, but he that helps the poor Honors God”.

Market Need:

            Negative events of society that are occurring daily in local communities throughout our nation have created a need for us to act as “Our Brother’s & Sister’s Keepers” in a sense. With the ever-changing economy causing an increasing amount of homelessness, personal & family discord from divorce, abuse, and the acts of nature, the need for an Organization that offers the benefit of items needed for an average normal lifestyle increases daily. Public service non-profit agencies offer a variety of services to benefit individuals of this status. However, a system that provides basic household items at no cost to individuals that have suffered events of this nature would be an additional blessing, especially when donated by donors that wish to receive only the feeling of helping another individual in a less fortunate status than themselves at the time. The RHN provides this service nation-wide to all that qualify as an assisting agency to the many local public service agencies in place now.

Unique Qualifications to fulfill this need:

            The Founder of the RHN, Mr. James Polk, originally founded a similar program in Denton County, Texas in 1998. James organized and operated the organization for almost 3 years. The earlier organization known as the Robinhood Archive was not a 501C3 designated entity; however it did operate on a non-profit basis without funds from any outside source. The RHA used local volunteers with similar interests to provide the services to needy individuals within the county that had suffered a hardship of this nature. Mr. Polk, through working with the local agencies of the Denton County United Way as well as the then organized Help-Net organization, serviced approximately 20 clients per month for the almost 3 years. With a directory of local volunteers, items donated to the RHA were collected, placed into local facilities, then placed on the RHA website for sister agencies of the United Way and Help-Net to view and call to reserve for any clients they served with needs of this nature. If the clients had no means to retrieve the donated free items, the RHA volunteers delivered to the clients without charge.

Financial Plan:       

            Revenue for the RHN shall be attained through sources such as grants, private and corporate grants, as well as from individual philanthropists, and local funding available for 501C3 organizations through the local United Way funds and local churches and other community service agencies. Fundraisers of the RHN shall provide some funding as well.

Company Analysis

            The Organization is in its start-up phase at this time regarding establishing a National presence. The RHN Incorporated in 2009 and the Corporate Office for the organization shall be located in Dallas, Texas.

Past Accomplishments / Unique Qualifications:

            The RHN has no past history. This is a start-up non-profit Organization. However, the founder of the RHN, Mr. James Polk, has a short history in this area of operation. In 1998 Mr. Polk founded an Organization known as the Robinhood Archive located in Denton County, Texas. The mission then was the same as now, to fill the need to assist individuals in the community that had suffered loss due to events as mentioned above. James desired to be involved in his local community in order to give back to the community that substantially provided a comfortable living standard for him and his family. After consulting with the local United Way agencies and the local Help-Net Church Organizations he organized the RHA. For the next period of over two years Mr. Polk operated the process of collecting, storing, and delivering donated items from many different sources. In 2001 following the Columbine School Massacre event in Colorado, Mr. Polk organized and became actively involved in the Texas School Safety Program. This program was directed at improving public school classroom safety efforts in the event of another Columbine related occurrence. During this period Mr. Polk was regularly out of state and was not able to replace his position as Director of Operations for the RHA, therefore after several months the organization ceased to offer the services any longer. After serving his community with the RHA organization Mr. Polk maintained his dream of someday replacing the original organization with a nation-wide effort to provide the same non-profit benefits to individuals in all states in order to make a difference in society on a grand scale during his lifetime. This business plan is evidence of Mr. Polk’s desire to complete his dream from the original concept of being “Our Brother’s & Sister’s Keepers”.

Industry Analysis

Market Size:

            The goal for the RHN is to make the services offered available to every State in the U.S. The objective of the Organization is to operate a facility of this nature in each county or conglomerate of counties within each State. This will allow the needy individuals throughout the Nation that have suffered a hardship that placed themselves or their families in a position of despair to receive some level of assistance for products and services of this nature at no cost.

 Trends:

            On any given night in America, anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless, according to estimates of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Every wave of homelessness in the U.S. has also been associated with negative attitudes toward homeless people. The negativity is variously expressed in legislation such as vagrancy laws, editorial writing, and personal attitudes. It may be stimulated by dominant cultural values, such as the disdain for idleness in colonial times, vague invocations of public safety, or in response to observed behaviors. Among the latter, the abuse of alcohol by homeless people began to receive attention following the Civil War and produced more pejorative labels and editorial posturing than services. Following the Great Depression, homelessness was associated almost exclusively with alcoholic single men, generally found in less respectable sections of town. Service responses to this population were unobtrusive and almost entirely delivered by charity and faith-based programs.

            During the contemporary wave of homelessness, the population is quite diverse, with the substance-abusing population continuing to be well represented. However, as the seeming epitome of what has been labeled the “undeserving poor”, homeless people have been the target of a remarkable number of contemporary laws and ordinances that criminalize many aspects of their daily existence. Both the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless Web sites cite many examples of such laws and ordinances.

            The lesson from the review of the history of homelessness in the U.S. reminds us that many of the contemporary causes and responses are not unique. History also reminds us that one day our actions, programs, and policies will be the subject of examination and analysis. We should be committed to leaving the best possible legacy of lessons while demonstrating that our responses were the best that our knowledge and resources enabled us to deliver.

            In its 2004 survey of 27 cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that the homeless population was 49% African-American, 35% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic, 2% Native American, and 1% Asian.

            The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that in 2002, 5 % of the U.S. non-institutionalized population accounted for 49% of the medical expenditures.

            The Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty published data from 24 states, covering more than 50 cities/counties, showing chronic homelessness ranging from a low of 7% to a high of 53%. (2005)

            A 1997 survey documents 40,000 homeless-serving programs in 21,000 locations within the U.S.

            What remains clear to many, however, is that individual action by a provider, while deeply inspiring, is a strategy of limited success. The contemporary wave of U.S. homelessness has been proven to be enduring and complex. Its persistence has been accompanied by the gradual evolution of a system of service that may stimulate our thinking about how we can best continue to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness. In past waves of homelessness, the moral imperative of responding to people in desperate circumstances has prevailed. Charity, church, kin, and compassion often did more to redress homelessness than civic administration. But in the face of complex contemporary homelessness, the force of government legislation, policy, and financial resources continue to be at the frontlines of our expectations and approaches to solve this crisis.

            The best approximation is from a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty which states that approximately 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year. (2007) A 1997 review of research conducted over the past decade (1987-1997) in 11 communities and 4 states found that shelter capacity more than doubled in 9 communities and 3 states during that time period (National Coalition for the Homeless, 1997). In two communities and 2 states, shelter capacity tripled over the decade. These numbers are useful for measuring the growth in demand for shelter beds (and the resources made available to respond to that growth) over time. They indicate a dramatic increase in homelessness in the U.S. over the past 2 decades.

            In June of 2007 the National Coalition for the Homeless published a “HOW CAN Y0U HELP END HOMELESSNESS” list. One of the many things listed from this report was the need for HOUSEHOLD GOODS OR OTHER ITEMS. Service providers may need items such as kitchen utensils, FURNITURE, books, toys, games, stuffed animals, dolls, diapers, etc.

Marketing Plan:

Products and Services

            The products marketed by the RHN are new furniture as well as good-condition used furniture and household items. These items are donated by individuals, companies, organizations, and sister community service agencies that simply wish to help individuals in need within their community that are prohibited from purchasing like items from available sources.

Promotions

            The RHN shall solicit the need for volunteers & donors for this purpose through, but not limited to:

1.      Volunteer Directories of other non-profit Organizations,

2.      Radio talk programs regarding community service actions,

3.      Local Churches and Faith-based Organizations,

4.      Meet & Greet sessions in public locations such as Malls or large Retail Establishments.

Price

            The RHN shall collect, store, and deliver (if needed) any donated items at no cost to the persons donating as well as no cost to the recipients of the items. Our services are performed by local volunteers from the community that become members of our volunteer directory. There are no membership costs, and the members are not obligated to ever provide service. However, if when we have a need to collect, store, or deliver an item volunteers from the directory list will be called one by one until we coordinate enough volunteers for the specific task at hand. The RHN Coordinator will furnish the pertinent information on the item to be processed, the address, name of donor or recipient, and the time and place to be. Our volunteers simply donate their time and efforts as they find it convenient to do so, as a statement of gratitude to society that they are thankful for their blessed lifestyle, and being blessed a little bit more than the persons that are presently down on their luck or suffering a temporary hardship.

Place

            The RHN shall provide a local facility that will enable local volunteers to collect, store, and deliver items to needy individuals within the local community. The RHN Website will display the items available within the county so that individuals as well as other non-profit agencies can view and request items for any person that qualifies for such assistance.

Partnerships

            The RHN shall forge lasting key relationships with other local non-profit Organizations, Churches, and other Community Service Agencies for the benefit of any and all persons suffering loss due to events of this nature.

Operations Plan

Daily Operations:

            The Corporate Staff shall oversee each county’s performance of activities and assist in the coordinating of items being collected, stored, and delivery to qualified recipients. The Corporate Call Center Operators shall organize volunteer efforts within their county. The primary role of the Corporate team shall be to systematically organize and develop each county facility, county-by-county, State by State, until every county within each State offers services of this nature for needy individuals in that county.

Business Milestones:

·        The RHN, originally established in 1998 in Denton County, Texas known as "The Robinhood Archive" incorporated in February 2009.

·        This business plan is presently being presented to funding Foundations throughout the U.S. in order to acquire funds for its National Expansion operations with proposed Corporate Offices located in Dallas
County, Texas.

·        Phase I of the plan is to continue operations in Denton County, establish operations in Dallas, Tarrant
and Travis Counties.

·        Phase II of the plan is to establish one active County within each State of the U.S.; then to continue establishing additional County units within each State until each County in every State is represented with the service benefits.

·        Denton County, Texas is the only current County Unit in operation.

Management Team