Setting Strategy With a Small Team

Most charity strategy advice is written for organisations that don't exist anywhere I've worked. Hundred-person teams, three-month off-sites, dedicated strategy leads. The reality of the UK sector - where the median charity has fewer than ten staff and a single fundraiser - is different. Strategy at that scale is not a process. It is a practice.

That distinction matters. A process is something you do once and then you have it. A practice is something you do on a rhythm, with the team you have, in the time you actually own. The strategy advice that follows is built for the second.

What strategy is for, in plain English

Strategy is the answer to two questions: "What are we going to do, on purpose, in the next 12 months?" and "What are we going to stop doing, on purpose, in the next 12 months?" Everything else is decoration.

I have seen strategy documents that run to forty pages, full of impact pyramids, theory-of-change diagrams, and SWOTs. They are mostly there to make trustees feel reassured. They rarely change a single staff decision on a Tuesday morning. That is the test of a strategy: does it change Tuesday-morning decisions?

The one-page direction

At the top of the strategy stack sits a one-page document that states three things:

• Where we are going (a 3-year direction, in plain English, no jargon).
• Who we are for (the people we exist to serve, named specifically).
• How we will know we got there (3–5 metrics, no more).

That page does not change every year. It changes every three years, or when something material happens - a major funder shift, a sector crisis, a shift in mission. If you are rewriting it more often than that, you are not setting strategy; you are reacting.

A worked example

Where we are going: By 2028, we will be the go-to free counselling provider for under-25s in West Yorkshire who can't access NHS waiting lists. Who we are for: 16–25 year olds with mild-to-moderate anxiety or depression, currently waiting more than 12 weeks for CAMHS or IAPT. How we will know: 600 sessions delivered annually; 70% reporting reduced symptoms at 12 weeks; one-third of referrals coming directly from young people themselves.

That is one page. Trustees can read it in two minutes. Staff can quote it in interviews. The CEO can use it to say no to opportunities. That is the only useful test.

The one-A3 annual plan

Below the direction sits the annual plan. I keep this on a single A3 sheet, divided into four columns: programmes, fundraising, operations, and people. Each column has 3–5 commitments, each with an owner and a number.

• Programmes: what we will deliver, to whom, by when.
• Fundraising: how much we will raise, from which sources.
• Operations: the systems and policies that will be live and tested.
• People: the team, the training, the wellbeing rhythms.

The whole thing fits on one wall. The whole team can see it. Every quarter, you sit with the A3 and mark each commitment in green, amber, or red. That fifteen-minute conversation is where strategy actually happens - not in the document, in the review.

How to run the writing process - in three meetings

Most charity strategies stall because they are written by committee. The way to avoid that is to separate the writing from the deciding. Three meetings, three outputs.

Meeting 1: Inputs (90 minutes, full team)

Before the meeting, share three short documents: the latest impact data, the latest financials, and a 1-page sector scan. The meeting itself answers four questions: what is working, what is not, what has changed in the world, and what would we do if we had to choose. No drafting in this meeting. Listening only.

Meeting 2: Drafting (offline, CEO + 1)

The CEO and one senior person write the one-page direction and the one-A3 plan. They do this offline, in 2–3 sittings. Drafting by committee produces fog; drafting by two produces clarity.

Meeting 3: Challenge (90 minutes, board + senior team)

Trustees and senior staff sit with the draft and pressure-test it. The questions to invite: "What are we deliberately not doing?" "Where is the assumption that, if wrong, breaks the plan?" "Where is the funding for this?" Edits go back to the CEO. Sign-off in writing within a week.

What to commit to - and what to leave out

Commit to:

• Numbers. Real ones. With owners.
• A small set of "stops" - things you are deliberately ending or pausing.
• A funding plan that is honest about diversification, not aspirational.
• A people plan that names training, wellbeing, and succession risks.

Leave out:

• Mission and values, unless they are genuinely changing. Restating them is a delay tactic.
• External-facing language that sounds like a brochure. The strategy is for staff and trustees first.
• Multi-year financial projections beyond the next 12 months. They will be wrong. Plan in 12-month blocks.

The quarterly review - where the work actually happens

A strategy that is reviewed once a year is a strategy that gets a year of drift. The discipline is the quarterly review: a 60-minute meeting where the senior team sits with the A3 and marks each commitment.

Three things come out of a good quarterly review:

1. A short note to the board: what is on track, what is amber, what is red.
1. One or two changes to the plan - usually a "stop," sometimes a "swap."
1. A re-prioritisation of the next 90 days, not the next 12 months.

That is it. The strategy is not a document. The strategy is the meeting.

Three traps to avoid

Trap 1: The 3-year plan that pretends the world will sit still

Funding cycles, political shifts, demographic changes - all of them outpace a written plan. Build flexibility into the structure, not into the wording. The one-page direction holds. The one-A3 plan flexes.

Trap 2: Strategy as a restraining order on yourself

A good strategy says no to things that look attractive. Funder X offers a grant for a project that is adjacent to your mission. The strategy is the document that lets you say "not this year." If yours doesn't do that, it is a wish list.

Trap 3: Trustees treating strategy like a board paper

Trustees challenge and sign off. They do not draft. The minute trustees start re-wording your direction, you have a governance problem disguised as a strategy problem. Reset the rule before the next round.

A small charity's strategy in three sentences

A one-page direction that lasts three years. A one-A3 plan that lasts twelve months. A 60-minute quarterly review that turns the plan into Tuesday-morning decisions.

That is the whole thing. Everything else is a frame for it.

Further reading

The Board Pack Template That Actually Gets Read | A Risk Register for the Modern Charity | Charity Finance Under £1m Turnover