Civil Society > Our Services

On this page, you can learn more about the services we offer to civil society clients.

Strategy Development

For us, strategy comes first. A good strategy is informed by an understanding of your desired goals, the realities of your organisation and the world in which it operates. It should be clear enough to communicate internally and externally, giving everyone a framework for decision-making. It should help you understand the trade-offs you make as an organisation and when to say no. It should be realistic but ambitious and translate into a plan that you can achieve.

We have led strategy development for small pre-launch NGOs and the largest charities in the country. We have facilitated short ‘quick-hit’ strategy workshops with senior management and long-term engagements working with whole organisations.

In all of these cases, a new strategy delivers a clear sense of direction, priorities for action and renewed sense of purpose.

Our work in this area covers issues such as:

Business Development and Marketing Strategy

More and more civil society organisations are delivering services, either directly to beneficiaries or through long-term contracts. Once in this position, they start to think about expansion into new products, markets or regions. Without proper planning, this is dangerous territory. For any organisation delivering services, it is vital to think properly about customers, propositions and markets.

Firetail can help by putting in place the building blocks of a solid business plan. We work with you to assemble the evidence you need to grow with confidence. Our work in this area includes:

Fundraising Strategy

Organisations reliant upon fundraising, philanthropy and voluntary giving know that conditions are tough and getting tougher. Existing lines are delivering lower revenue and the remaining growth areas, such as corporate donations, have become highly competitive. Acquisition remains as difficult as ever.

A strategic approach can identify opportunities to increase the returns from an existing portfolio.

Whilst growth is difficult with traditional fundraising approaches, most charities have opportunities to squeeze more value from their existing portfolio and focus on profitable lines.

It should also position you for the longer term, delivering the innovation and new models of fundraising required to grow charity income. This is a time of innovation, with venture philanthropy and new forms of social finance offering interesting new avenues for funding.

For clients looking at their fundraising strategy, we offer the following services:

Public Engagement & Campaign Evaluation

Campaigning and public mobilisation are important tools for civil society. However, campaign evaluation is often an afterthought to an intensive, highly charged period of activity. It can feel like a tick-box exercise and doesn’t always inform the way campaigns are run in the future. We believe that a structured approach to evaluation can make sure that the lessons you learned during a campaign are captured and that people take notice of them.

Firetail has conducted independent campaign evaluations for coalitions, campaigns and other organisations involved in advocacy for change. We completed the official campaign evaluation for the Make Poverty History coalition (download here) and the official Mid-Term Review for the Global Campaign for Education (download here) . In addition, we recently addressed an OECD Seminar on successful campaign evaluation and participated in the NPC working group on advocacy evaluation.

Our approach to evaluation:

We offer specialist advice, strategy development and project management to organisations working on public engagement and participation. This has included working with Oxfam GB on campaigning and activism and Stop Climate Chaos on communications and strategy development. We worked with Bristol City Council and Friends of the Earth to develop an award-winning online campaign tool (www.campaigncreator.org) to promote community activism.

Mergers and Integration Planning

Mergers between charities are becoming more common.

Some of the country’s highest profile charities, including Cancer Research UK and Livability, are the products of mergers. According to the Charity Commission, 5% of charities are the result of mergers in the past 10 years.

We believe that this trend is set to continue due to a range of pressures

We help charities in the planning and implementation of a merger or other strategic partnership. Our services include:

More Information

For more information about any of our work in these areas, please contact us.