Mentoring

“I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed working with you on this bid development for the DCSF. Apart from your expertise in undertaking a mammoth task like this - which in itself is invaluable - you have been generous; patient; creative; supportive and a real partner to me. I have felt all the way through like you been my rock of support and have made what could have been a distressing and stressful process fun (yes, I think we have laughed a lot together and I like that!), manageable and a great learning opportunity.

If this happens 2050 young people will be forever in debt to you probably without ever knowing it.

Thank you - with love and respect”


back to top

Fundraising

Being Turned Down for Funding?

• Not sure which funds to go for?
  
• Lacking the time to write tenders and complicated grant application forms?
  
• Wondering if the tail is wagging the dog?
  
• Is your fundraiser constantly asking you to apply for things that you don’t think are relevant or for large enough amounts of money?
  
• Are you chasing funders’ desires or chasing funds to meet your own strategic ambitions?

I have many years of success in raising funds from central and local government sources, from the Big Lottery and from a wide range of trusts, foundations and corporates.

I’ve also worked on the other side and assessed applications and given out funds. I know the dangers of chasing funding for its own sake, and the challenge of sticking to the vision and mission of an organisation even when few funders seem to be interested.

Fundraising is an art form and a technique. I can work with you to review which funders should be interested in your work, and how to approach them even if they have turned you down before. And I can work with you to help you to get better at the technique of doing it, and/or I can write your applications for you at the start of this process. We’ll need to work closely together so that we make sure the application genuinely reflects both what you can do and want to do.

I won’t produce one of those long lists of trust funders who might be interested in funding your work. You can pay other consultants to do that, but at the end of the day it is only a list and you still have to find out how those trusts think and what their passions are. Instead, I’ll give you shortcuts to finding out about potential funders, and I’ll also talk to you about who has funded you before. I know a lot of the funders. And if I don’t I’ll tell you, and we’ll work out who you know that does know them. In my experience this is the art form part of fundraising. Like most work, it involves relationship building and getting a really good understanding of what the funder is interested in and why.

back to top

Strategic Planning and Implementation

A good strategic plan needs to contain a vision. It needs to be clear to anyone reading it what your organisation is for and where it is planning to go over the next few years. It needs to be realistic, so it has to refer to the past in order to demonstrate how you are learning and developing from your work. It needs to contain measurable goals. And it needs to be exciting – to capture people’s imaginations; make them passionate about the work and the organisation.

Writing a good strategic plan is the easy part – although if you find writing a chore I’m happy to help to write it.

The first hard part is making sure that everyone in the organisation is signed up to the plan and that it reflects and learns from the organisation's work to date. I can work with Trustees, Chairs and Chief Executives, Senior Managers, whole staff groups, volunteers and stakeholders to help to crystallise your vision, identify goals and the learning from the past. I can get involved at any stage of the process of developing the plan – from helping you devise a process of development relevant to your organisation, to commenting on drafts of emerging plans at a much later stage of the process, and anything in-between. I can interview stakeholders, run workshops for trustees, or for staff.

The next hard part is actually implementing the plan. A strategic plan that sits on a shelf is a waste of everyone’s time and effort. It has to be converted into measurable actions and those actions have to be reviewed. One way to do this is to produce annual business plans which have specific goals that take you nearer your longer term vision. Linked to this you can also develop key performance indicators to include in people’s targets and to report on. And you’ll need to make sure that you can collect information that tells you if you are doing the things you planned to do.

I can work with you to review the management information that you currently collect to check that it is relevant and not overly costly to collect. I can help you to think about other ways of collecting this information, and put you in touch with organisations who have faced similar issues and found other ways to work through them.

"Dorit's knowledge, enthusiasm, inclusive style and sense of fun were key to making Family Rights Group's away day a real success. Definitely the best facilitator we've ever used."


back to top

Performance Management

Are you struggling to match performance indicators to performance management?

Have you got performance indicators that seem only vaguely linked to your business plan? Or that cannot be tied to any one person and only achieved by the whole organisation? Do your staff think that performance management is a waste of energy and time? I can work with your staff and managers to identify what the key indicators actually are for your work and work with them to identify what these indicators mean for their work, and for the work of those working to them. This work is best done in workshop style, and I will facilitate the workshops and, if you want, write up the outcomes.

back to top

Influencing

Is your organisation trying to change things? Have you succeeded? Do you have a long way to go?

Sometimes organisations find themselves doing an awful lot of work, but when you stand back, it seems that nothing has changed despite all your effort. There are many possible reasons for this but something can always be done about it.

I can work with you to review where your effort and resources have been directed, how your networks work for you, who your key audiences are and how you are reaching them, and develop an action plan for moving forward. I can work with your staff, managers and trustees to agree responsibilities, actions and appropriate success measures. I can mentor you or someone else in the organisation to help you to achieve the actions we identify. I can broker introductions, help you to develop new networks and make better use of the networks that you have already. And I can help you understand the influencing process, with lots of examples from my own work.

Continuing Support

After we have completed an assignment there are a number of options for continuing support. We can arrange:

• regular telephone calls or meetings to review how things are going.
  
• e-mail dialogue about specific issues to help you take them forward, using a structured format that I create especially for you.
  
• I can invite you to events with other clients and relevant people so that you can share experiences and develop new networks.
  
• we can also discuss any of your invididual needs for support
  

back to top