Charities that are thinking about starting a new business venture should assemble a planning team that encompasses a wide variety of perspectives within their organization, Sean McGee, a partner at Cause Impact, in Columbus, Ohio, told participants at the Social Enterprise Summit.

He recommended that the team includes organization leaders, employees who would be involved in the business, several board members, and perhaps donors who are deeply involved in the group’s work.

“You create a tremendous amount of buy-in before you even launch the project if you assemble a team across those different constituencies so that everybody has the opportunity to help craft the final product,” said Mr. McGee.

He said it’s particularly important to include staff members.

“You don’t want to hand down the plan from Mount Olympus to the people who are going to be executing it, because it dramatically increases the chances of organ rejection,” said Mr. McGee.

Early on, he recommends that an outside facilitator help the group brainstorm possible business ideas.

Says Mr. McGee: “If the executive director runs the brainstorming session, they sometimes have difficulty restraining themselves from shooting down ideas as they’re brought up.”