STRATEGIC CONSULTING
Your charity makes a difference in the world and changes people’s lives.
Our goal is to help you increase income and impact, to make the biggest difference possible and to make the most effective use of your resources.
We have helped over 100 clients to make a difference to the people they support. We have provided strategic consulting to charities and other social impact organisations; working across a range of causes and sectors, from health and social care to poverty, youth, domestic violence and more.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY STRATEGIC CONSULTING?
Sometimes referred to as management, strategy or professional consulting, there is often a lot of jargon involved! Partly the ambiguity is due to there being a wide range of ways that consultants can add value to organisations.
To offer some clarity, we have set out below some of the activities that are typically involved and some examples of we have applied these to help our clients increase their income and impact.
TYPICAL ACTIVITIES IN CONSULTING PROJECTS:
Planning
Information gathering
Data analysis
External research
Facilitation of group workshops
One-to-one discussion
Thinking
Functional analysis
Reporting
Implementation support
EACH CONSULTING PROJECT IS TAILORED TO YOUR SPECIFIC NEEDS AND SITUATION.
Here are some examples of completed projects:
Developing an organisational strategy
This has included undertaking all research, facilitation of workshops, discussions and producing the agreed strategic plan; or has been to provide specific aspects, such as facilitation, while other tasks are undertaken by staff.
Developing a fundraising strategy
Follows the same process as the organisational strategy but is focussed on fundraising and income generation.
Undertaking a strategic review
Rather than developing a new strategy, this is a review of progress against the current strategic plan and includes analysis of information, stakeholder interviews and discussion to explore challenges and barriers in areas that are not on track.
Supporting a CEO with a restructure
of their fundraising and marketing department – this included one-to-one sessions to discuss the issue and proposed changes; support to prepare required documents such as the written case for the board and documentation for the new posts; and support with the recruitment process.
Supporting a group of charities to form a new partnership
This included undertaking research to present options based on what has worked elsewhere, facilitating workshops to discuss a range of key issues and providing relevant documentation to enable the partnership agreement.
Undertaking a feasibility study
to assess whether a proposed project is viable or likely to be successful, for example this has been done for fundraising appeals and for a member of a federation considering whether to go independent – this has included undertaking research, facilitation workshops and one-to-one interviews and presenting findings with a recommendation on whether the charity is able /ready to proceed.
Supporting the CEO and board of trustees at a small charity to review whether their organisational structure is fit for purpose
following significant growth for the charity – following a review of the available information, this included detailed one-to-one discussions with the CEO and a workshop with the board, resulting in agreement of the proposed structure and required actions.
Undertaking external research reports to help CEOs, trustees and/or senior managers to make decisions
on strategy, planning or investment – these have included research to provide analysis of comparable organisations; identify trends in fundraising and philanthropy; and identify new funding opportunities.
Reviewing performance of a specific income stream
This has included reviewing internal information, data analysis, benchmarking against comparable organisations and interviewing key staff to prepare a report on performance with recommendations for improvement.
Acting as an independent, external sounding board and thinking partner
for CEOs and Directors – for example through one-to-one discussions and reviewing information, with additional support provided as required such as undertaking research to support decision making.
A FEW OF THE REASONS TO WORK WITH US
While you could do this work internally in many cases, there is often no capacity within the staff team due to the demands of the day-to-day, business as usual work; and in addition to providing the additional resource needed, our independent external perspective is often highly valued.
Our mission is to help our clients to maximise their social impact – this drives our integrity in putting our client’s interests before our own. We propose the most effective and efficient solution, representing the best value to you and we will always talk ourselves out of a job where we don’t believe we can add sufficient value.
Every consulting project is tailored specifically to best meet your needs – we do not pitch one size fits all models.
We have an in-depth understanding of the charity sector, with a strong network and broad knowledge from working with over 100 charities of various size, structure and cause.
- We do not outsource projects or delegate work to junior staff.
We have a strong track record of meeting our clients’ needs with an ability to quickly understand your situation accurately; we have received positive feedback on our research, facilitation, strategic thinking and communication.
We don’t like jargon and don’t tend to talk about particular tools, frameworks, theories etc as we know this can be off-putting but we do have a strong understanding of these and can apply them to our consulting projects.
- We only work with charities and non-profits – we understand which consulting tools from the commercial world can be applied effectively in a non-profit context and which do not translate well.
SUCCESS STORIES
The KEDA Consulting team gave me an efficient service which met and exceeded my expectations. They gave us the headspace and objective view which we needed to drive forward our fundraising approach and realise greater success.
KEDA provided our group with impartial advice, guidance and direction and facilitated a process which led to organisations working together to very positive effect. Without KEDA's involvement this would not have been achieved. Your involvement was invaluable.
I found the review of our trust fundraising programme, that was completed by Alex, to be invaluable. It helped us to shape our focus and strengthen the team for the future.
KEDA have been an excellent partner for our charity and have played a key role over the last few years in supporting our growth strategy.
GET IN TOUCH
If you would like to discuss how we could work together, please e-mail hello@kedaconsulting.co.uk or schedule a call. It would be great to hear from you.