I am delighted to share our Strategic Plan with you, both the Detailed Plan along with a briefer Executive Summary.
The purpose of this plan is to deliver the key building blocks needed to ensure we can better support our members, and with them deliver greater impact in the future. This plan sets our priorities and direction for the next three years (2019-22). In particular we have identified 4 key goals:
Support and grow our membership – we are committed to adding tangible and increasing value to our members. As a membership organisation, this is our very lifeblood, put simply we exist to support the work our members are doing. Despite having limited resources we want to have a growth mind-set and have set the ambitious goal of increasing the number of members by 50% over the next three years.
Measure and demonstrate our impact – we want to improve how we measure and communicate the great work that the sector is doing and the role CRNS has in supporting this. We plan to issue our first Impact Report in September and to publish this annually thereafter. Our recent Membership Infographicis a small example of our efforts to better communicate the impact of the sector. We also plan to implement a CRM which, among many other benefits, will take some of the administrative pain out of joining or renewing your membership with us.
Communicate our vision – we want to be a strong and representative voice for the community resources sector in Scotland. We will be reviewing our communications starting with this website later this year. We will also move on to review our wider communications including our name and brand. For absolute clarity, we are in no way planning to move away from our current focus as a membership lead organisation! But, we are willing to make changes to our name and brand so we can better serve the community resources sector going forward.
Secure strong and stable finances – Put simply CRNS cannot help deliver a more sustainable Scotland if we are not first sustainable ourselves. We recognise the need to attract a wider range of funders going forward along with more trading/entrepreneurial income.
These goals represent significant, but not insurmountable, challenges for CRNS. The board, staff and I look forward to working with you our members and wider stakeholders to deliver the changes set out in this plan.
Michael Cook, CEO