JM Fundraising Blog
SWOT Analysis
Mar 5, 03:33 PM
Like most things in life the quality of the end result often depends on the preparation. Fundraising is no exception and great care should be taken when planning a new appeal or when revisiting an existing one. Our fundraising consultants often use an adaptation of the well tested SWOT Analysis, which provides a good structure for primary planning. Below is a fairly good overview from wikipedia;
SWOT Analysis, is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture.
- Strengths: attributes of the organisation that are helpful to achieving the objective.
- Weaknesses: attributes of the organisation that are harmful to achieving the objective.
- Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective.
- Threats: external conditions that are harmful to achieving the objective.
SWOT Analysis involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s (using data from Fortune 500 companies).
Identification of SWOTs is essential because subsequent steps in the process of planning for achievement of the selected objective may be derived from the SWOTs.
First, the decision makers have to determine whether the objective is attainable, given the SWOTs. If the objective is NOT attainable a different objective must be selected and the process repeated.
If, on the other hand, the objective seems attainable, the SWOTs are used as inputs to the creative generation of possible strategies, by asking and answering each of the following four questions, many times:
- How can we Use each Strength?
- How can we Stop each Weakness?
- How can we Exploit each Opportunity?
- How can we Defend against each Threat?
· James Marlow
