Introduction - Church Urban Fund · Introduction For General Project Development, ... (St Philips...

Introduction

For General Project Development,

Fundraising & Marketing help &

advice contact:

John McCallum, Near Neighbours

Tel: 0116 247 8813

Email: [email protected]

St Philip’s Centre Ltd

2A Stoughton Drive North,

Leicester LE5 5UB

Whatever your project activity, the people who run, manage

and fund it will need clarity on what you are trying to achieve.

This is particularly crucial for the beneficiaries of the project, as

without a clear vision of your work you may be unable to

deliver what they need. Visionary people are often vital to the

growth and wellbeing of faith communities but in this Toolkit

you don’t have to possess existing skills to become a visionary

person. The tools are simple and easy to use by people of all

backgrounds and will help explore, revisit and develop your

Project’s Vision.

What is a Vision?

A vision is simply an outline picture of what a project wants

to do.

Even long established projects will find it advantageous to

periodically revisit and evolve their vision to reaffirm why

they exist.

An understandable vision that is owned by the key people

involved is usually the starting point that leads to effective

written plans, fundraising, management and delivery to

projects and their beneficiaries.

Inclusive Vision Development

Consensus. It is important to be inclusive in a vision

development exercise and it is good to agree at the start

that no one will be criticised for what they suggest or

contribute and everyone’s contribution will be valued.

Words or Pictures. It is important to remember that not

everyone is good with numbers, words and writing. A fun

way of getting around this is to ask people to draw an image

of what they mean e.g. involving the police in a project might

be shown by drawing a police helmet or a stick police

person (see ‘Other Vision Development Tools’ on Page 5).

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‘If you don’t know

where you are going

you are sure to end

up somewhere else’

Mark Twain

“Vision without action

is a daydream.

Action without vision

is a nightmare”

(Japanese Proverb)

Bringing People Together—Near Neighbours 1. St Philip’s Centre - study & engagement in a multi-faith society

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2.

The 7 W’s Vision Development Tool

Introduction

Successfully used by individuals, faith and secular groups, communities, and statutory agencies across

the UK and abroad this simple 7 Question tool provides a framework for vision development. The

resulting answers may become the basis of a written action or business plan (See also Toolkit on

Project Planning). The 7W’s are the basic questions that every funder and decision maker will ask

about your project.

The following 7W questions can be answered individually and then shared with others or

answered as part of a group exercise. Asking someone you trust, who is not part of your project, to

act as a facilitator, may help you to get more out of the vision development process (St Philip’s

Centre Team are experienced in helping groups in this way).

If you cannot answer a W question don’t worry, you are simply identifying part of the process that

you need to explore further and are thus participating in active research!

By keeping the results of this exercise on file and annually reviewing them, possibly in

conjunction with an annual report process, you will be able to check on how you are developing

your project’s vision.

You may want to print and copy this guide for individuals to work from.

Accessibility. If people in your project have learning

difficulties, a sensory or other impairment why not buddy

them up with someone who has complimentary skills to help

them get the best from the vision development process.

However, all they may need is accessibility and equipment to

manage on their own, so ensure that you give them the

option to choose what is best for them.

Jargon Busting. Encourage people not to use jargon and

acronyms. Keeping your visionary language simple should

help everyone involved to understand what you write down

as your Project’s Vision.

Agreement. If you can’t reach agreement on your Vision,

you might decide to seek help from someone outside your

group or project who might facilitate you to achieve

agreement at a future event.

Ownership. Once your Project Vision is agreed why not

post your written Vision on a wall or notice-board where all

involved can see it and own it themselves. Ensure that it is in

languages other than English if those using your project

would find this helpful.

Involvement. As a useful exercise in inclusive working, you

might ask some or all of the individuals from your project

beneficiaries, volunteers, staff, management, commissioners

and funders to contribute to your vision

development exercise.

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WW11..

The Questions

1. Who are the people who will benefit from

the project and those working with you e.g. volunteers,

paid staff, management, faith congregation, partner

agencies?

Also identify the people who are not currently part of the

project who you might need to attract in the future.

2. What are your aims, these are bullet point

description of what you want to do in your project?

What is your project status that underpins your aims; are you a

group of neighbours, a constituted group or an independent

Charity, Limited Company or other.

3. Why do your want to do your project/activity?

Confirm the need for your project, are you sure that someone

locally isn’t already doing what you want to do. Have you done

any finding out or research, or identified the need for your

project’s activity? Include any reports, statistics, local community

views, press cuttings etc. (See Toolkit ‘Finding Out About

Your Community’)

This space is for you to write your answers/notes

WW22.. This space is for you to write your answers/notes


4.

4. Where is your project to take place, e.g. on the

street, in a faith building, across a district?

Add information on the locality and what it is like e.g. the type

of housing, access to services and opportunities, green spaces

and play facilities. Try not to use negative stereotypes as

communities can often be unfairly labelled. Instead note down

the positive aspects as well as the challenges experienced in

the community.

5. When do you want to carry out your project,

including timescales, opening hours and contingency

plans if you don’t meet expected timescales?

6. With what resources will your project be

carried out?

How much money will you need and where might it

come from? What resources will you use including people,

equipment, buildings and transport?


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7. Work out how your project will actually be achieved.

For example how many people will you help? How will you

support volunteers? Have you set any targets? How will

you monitor success? Also use this section to add in any other

work or issues you have thought of that will be needed for

your project.

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School Attendance Reading to kids

Confidence Nutrition

Children not doing Homework

as they are told

PARENTING SKILLS

Bed on time e-numbers in food

Patience

One of the most basic vision

development tools is the simple

flip chart, in the centre of which is

written the motivating issue. Using

this, a group of interested people

can think of ideas, all of which are

written on the chart that are

linked with a line drawn to the

central issue. This is some-times

called an Ideas Spider or

Mind Map (See right).

Notes to the 7 W’s

When you have finished answering the 7 W’s ensure that all who have participated are thanked for

their input and given a written record of what you agreed and information on the work

resulting from it. This exercise might be all the information you need to start work, alternatively it

might highlight what you have to do to get to the point of starting.

Faith based organisations may wish to accompany this process with prayer and seek spiritual input

throughout their vision development.

Other Vision Development Tools

The Ideas Spider & Mind Maps


http:www.cuf.org.uk/images/users/1/continuationfundingworkshop.pdf.url

Project Reflection Workshop

The Church Urban Fund together with the New Economics

Foundation has developed a more advanced Vision

development tool called Project Reflection Workshop that

might be used by projects of any faith or no faith that have

been operating for some years.

Designed to aid a project that had already been funded to

reassess its work; this toolalso helps a project to ask

questions that would be needed by any Funder for a renewal

of funding.

One of the most useful aspects is that it uses a timeline to

look at how the project has developed and where it might go

in the future. Although it may look complicated at first sight it

has a full set of instructions and has been found easy to use by

many and varied projects.

You will ideally need an external facilitator and enough wall

space in a room with comfortable seating to hang 5 adjoining

flip chart sheets for your timeline. (St Philips Centre staff will

be able to help and advise on this tool).

Use the following link to the Church Urban Fund website to

access the Project Reflection Workshop guidelines for use.

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Notes to the Ideas Spider & Mind Maps

One of the best uses of the technique is as an icebreaker to a more formal vision/planning session.

To make it more inter-active you might ask those in attendance to write or draw their own ideas

on the chart themselves. This might also be done by getting them to write the idea on a post-it-

note and then placing this on the flip chart.

A limitation of this exercise is that the words/pictures on the flip chart will often need interpreting

after the event. This can be done by writing a fuller description of what each word meant on

another flip chart after the event or in a follow up session. You might divide the words and their

descriptions under various headings for ease of understanding e.g.

To Find Out | Already Achieved | Work in Progress | Currently Not Possible

Taking a digital photograph of the flip chart and giving each person a copy as a record is useful and

comparatively cheap if reproduced on a photocopier.

6.


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We Want to Hear from You!

Please contact us if you would like to provide feedback or suggest any improvements to the Vision

Development Tools. Likewise, if you know of, or have used any similar tools successfully and want to

share them with other projects, we would love to hear from you. Contact us at the address details shown

on the front of this Toolkit.

SWOT Analysis

This tool helps recognise the qualities and hindrances that

contribute or threaten a successful fundraising strategy.

SWOT Analysis looks at four important components

(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to

consider when setting up or planning a fund raising strategy.

The SWOT Analysis considers whether the strengths can offer

opportunities and alternately, if the weaknesses can be

overcome to continue with these opportunities for a successful

fundraising campaign.

PEST & STEER Analysis

PEST refers to "Political, Economic, Social, and Technological’

factors - external forces which may affect the fundraising plan.

More recently the growing importance of environmental/

ecological factors have encouraged widespread use of an

updated version of the PEST framework - STEER.

STEER considers Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic,

Ecological and Regulatory factors.

Community Value for Toolkit Churches Projects

This is a new vision development/progression tool devised by

The Commission on Urban Life and Faith, the Churches

Regional Commission for Yorkshire and the Humber and the

Church Urban Fund. ‘The toolkit is a way for churches to show

that they contribute to their community in terms of outputs

and incomes. In particular, there are calculations that can

demonstrate the financial contribution of a church and its

projects and ways to identify a church’s distinctiveness’.

The Toolkit is there to be used as people see fit, perhaps in

support of a grant application or in negotiations with others

such as the Local Authority, the Local Strategic Partnership, or

the Health Trust. The Toolkit, which can be downloaded from

http://www.cuf.org.uk/default.asp?id=136, can also be used

over a period of time to identify changes and developments.

Different versions have been developed to reflect the different

financial arrangements of different denominations. Currently

the Church of England, Baptist and Methodist versions are

available, with a Roman Catholic version to follow.

© 2012 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means: photocopying, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior agreement with the author, St

Philip’s Centre Limited and Near Neighbours

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