Case study:Achates develops Strategy: Royal Literary Fund

Achates has worked extensively with the Royal Literary Fund over the last 18 months, delivering a detailed programme of work to support the Chair and Director in modernising and refocusing the organisation. This has included a review of the Board and its processes, and a review of the main RLF programmes and activities, making recommendations as to their evolution to optimise impact with and for priority audiences and to open them up to contributed income generation.

We have also delivered an Options Review and Business Plan development process, parallel to the one proposed here, with three organisational development options in addition to the status quo, explored. The options included, the purchase and development of a public facing venue, relocation, and a purely digital offer. The methodology followed the process proposed and outlined here, with a review of background documents and an inception meeting to establish the project, the partnership, timeline and milestones. In this instance this process also included elements of the audience consultation work, with an extensive consultation process including staff, Board, key stakeholders and beneficiaries. A set of priority audiences, types of impact, Statement of Purpose and Narrative Summary of Theory of Change both current and aspirational were developed to establish the Organisational Purpose and act as a Decision-Making Framework for the third element of the Triple Bottom Line, the Financial Model, to be realised against, ensuring resilience with integrity. The options were articulated and then explored through SWOT analyses in line with the Organisational Purpose. In this instance, two options were selected for further detailed modelling, including the development of contributed income strategies as included in this proposal and a summary Communications Strategy. As is recommended here, to inform this Achates benchmarked comparable organisations to ensure a robust and good practice model. From this the most appropriate model and approach which satisfied the Triple Bottom Line was identified, developed and modelled in a clear evidenced based plan and presented to the staff and Board.