Over the last 5 years as part of the Governance Reviews I perform for charities, I have had the opportunity of reviewing many a Strategic Plan.

By a Strategic Plan I mean a 3-5 year plan which covers such areas as:

• a description of what you do
• market analysis (and yes, charities do have a market)
• the advantages of your charity
• a marketing strategy
• a description of your operations
• a description of how your management works
• financial information and
• a risk evaluation

Most charities, in putting together such a plan do some of these areas well and others are paid lip service to. Believe me when I say very few put all of this together in a complete package. But one area where they consistently fail is to carry out an effective SWOT analysis.(For those who don't recognise the acronym it stands for

Strength

Weaknesses

Opportunities and

Threats

Most charities can illustrate their strengths (although some will overstate the position by not being honest with themselves). They can be reluctant to talk about weaknesses yet these need to be identified so you can demonstrate the work that is needed to mitigate the perceived weaknesses.

Opportunities clearly need to be identified and this is no different to a commercial organisation. You as trustees and members of the Senior Leadership Team have identified that your beneficiaries have a need that is not being provided for them and, that you have a strategy to fulfill that need. This is no different to an identified gap in the market to provide a product or service for the public that they are crying out for.

And then we come to the threats and this is the area which often gets neglected. Yes, lack of funding is always going to be the major threat that is perceived in putting together the plan but threats come in all shapes and sizes. Who would have imagined that a pandemic would arrive to disrupt virtually every charity in the country but then in 2001, every charity operating in the countryside was impacted by foot and mouth disease. Nobody had considered it a risk at that time as the previous outbreak had been 33 years earlier and I suspect even today it might be low on some countryside charities risk register, because nothing has occurred for 20 years. That is not to suggest it should reappear but major disruptions do happen and a charity needs to be prepared.Of course a commercial organisation would always have to consider competitors yet amazingly many charities are silent on this key area. Charities are not immune from competition; far from it. Leaving aside that every charity is competing for a finite amount of funding from the public sector, the commercial world and private individuals, we all know there are too many charities chasing the same pot of money and when in any one city, county or region there are a plethora of charities for animals.children,mental health,carers,medical conditions etc etc etc any charity has to be hard nosed enough to identify who might divert funding or potential members or supporters away from your charity.

A good strategic plan that recognises these things is much more likely to attract good quality funding if you can demonstrate a realistic approach to managing weaknesses and threats. Indeed by being imaginative in your solutions, you might mitigate these weaknesses and threats by demonstrating an opportunity for charities to work together rather than against each other for the benefit of all.