Rather than just outlining annual objectives, a charity manifesto, or a vision, mission and values statement, it is becoming increasingly popular for charities to develop and publish a Charity Strategic Plan.

Charity Competition

Charities often don’t think about competition. However, the reality is that most fundraising charities operate in competitive markets e.g. competition for funders grants and donations. While most charities (including fundraising charities and professional membership bodies) experience competition for event sponsorship monies, competition in the labour market (the war for talent) and even competition in providing beneficiary or member services – especially where beneficiaries or members have choices about who to contact for support.

Charity Strategic Positioning

The strategic challenge for a charity is to position itself at the centre of three overlapping circles;  its values, its opportunities and its capabilities. To elaborate, there is little sense chasing opportunities that conflict with the charity’s values. Equally, there is little sense chasing opportunities, when the charity capabilities are not up to the task.

Having established its strategic position, there are multiple ways to achieve charitable impact, including through some combination of; advocacy, beneficiary empowerment, beneficiary support and beneficiary direct aid. Using a fishing analogy, advocacy might be about lobbying for sustainable fisheries management, empowerment might be training people how to run an entire fishing operation (catch to can), support might be providing fishing skills & equipment (training, rods and boats) to the people, while aid would be providing fish to the people.

Charity Strategic Analysis informing the Strategic Plan

A good Charity Strategic Plan is based on strategic analysis. This can be done using a range of strategy tools; SWOT analysis with stakeholders, analysing the industry structure, PESTLE analysis, analysing the value chain and the organisations capabilities, analysing competitors (competitive positions), identifying natural allies and strategic alliance partners and producing some strategy maps. It’s well worth paying an expert to do this analysis, to help the board, its committees and the senior leadership team align and play to the organisation’s strengths.

Lastly, fundraising should become considerably easier, if the funder can be assured that robust strategic analysis was done to support the published Strategic Plan. Budgeting to update the strategic analysis once every few years, is also a risk mitigation for the risk that the charity’s relevance and impact fall short of stakeholder expectations.

Shelf Life of the Strategic Plan

In a rapidly changing external environment, it’s worth updating the Strategic Plan (updating the analysis) every 3 or 5 years. A good example is that a Charity Strategic Plan written and approved in 2020 won’t include the rapid impact of generative AI, on either the charity operations, or the beneficiaries lives.

Finally, does Culture really eat Strategy for Breakfast?

Arguably culture is about values and behaviours. Strategy is about how the goals will be met and how competitive advantage will be maintained. Culture and strategy are therefore complimentary aspects, not rivals. Culture may be vocal and colourful, but strategy quietly pays the bills!