Did you know there is a “secret” tool that moves SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) from a static description of your organization to a dynamic tool for planning strategy and fundraising? At our Grant Professionals Association meeting just a few days ago, we used a tool called TOWS to help us discuss and develop our organization vision. You can use this tool to plan capacity building approaches for grant applications.
The secret of TOWS is to look at each element as from a strategic, actionable perspective. With TOWS, you will use Strengths to take advantage of Opportunities and avoid Threats. You will use Opportunities to overcome Weaknesses. Finally, you will examine the intersection of internal Weaknesses with external Threats to avoid or minimize these areas.
For example, our GPA chapter offers a Strength in knowledge of proposal development but lacks internal resources to scale up our programming (a Weakness). Happily, we have developed partnerships (Opportunities) where we can offer educational programming without developing registration and extensive promotional systems.
The approach can be quite sophisticated when you add fundraising specific attributes (such as culture of philanthropy and natural donor constituencies) and think more broadly about your organizations abilities (money, time, brand, adaptive ability, operational and technical capacity, leadership capacity, and more).
I have used TOWS to engage organizations in planning, build buy in, and win the grant. For a tutorial with examples, you can download my SWOT/TOWS Guide for Fundraising and a worksheet to use in your own presentation at www.arthurdavisconsulting.com/resources.html
This is one of many tools to evaluate capacity building approaches. In future posts, I will share GIVES, ROI, and how to analyze donor data.
Post by Arthur Davis
Arthur provides grant writing, strategic planning, and capacity building consulting services. He serves as treasurer for GPA of Oregon & SW Washington.
The secret of TOWS is to look at each element as from a strategic, actionable perspective. With TOWS, you will use Strengths to take advantage of Opportunities and avoid Threats. You will use Opportunities to overcome Weaknesses. Finally, you will examine the intersection of internal Weaknesses with external Threats to avoid or minimize these areas.
For example, our GPA chapter offers a Strength in knowledge of proposal development but lacks internal resources to scale up our programming (a Weakness). Happily, we have developed partnerships (Opportunities) where we can offer educational programming without developing registration and extensive promotional systems.
The approach can be quite sophisticated when you add fundraising specific attributes (such as culture of philanthropy and natural donor constituencies) and think more broadly about your organizations abilities (money, time, brand, adaptive ability, operational and technical capacity, leadership capacity, and more).
I have used TOWS to engage organizations in planning, build buy in, and win the grant. For a tutorial with examples, you can download my SWOT/TOWS Guide for Fundraising and a worksheet to use in your own presentation at www.arthurdavisconsulting.com/resources.html
This is one of many tools to evaluate capacity building approaches. In future posts, I will share GIVES, ROI, and how to analyze donor data.
Post by Arthur Davis
Arthur provides grant writing, strategic planning, and capacity building consulting services. He serves as treasurer for GPA of Oregon & SW Washington.
RSS Feed