Strategy + Design
Success in building high-value partnerships begins with deliberate and collaborative strategy design, creative structuring, and considered decision-making.
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"Following your guidance and support, we went from raising zero to £1.5 million in just two years, and in 2024 we raised more than £5.5 million to fund Africa's talented medical researchers. That is a great achievement for a small Gambian charity!"
- Professor Sir Tumani Corrah KBE MRG, Founder & President Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF)
What is Strategic Funding Design?
Our work together will go deeper than traditional consultancy. Ours will be a transformational collaboration that bridges your current reality to your future ambitions. Together we will set a new intention, explore what is possible, create spaces for bolder conversations, and build a shared understanding of how high-value partnerships are started, sustained and scaled.
Our work together will engage your community of stakeholders and future partners who have the resources and networks to turn your authentic ambition into a funded reality.
This will involve shaping and then sharing your authentic ambition, identifying and involving your future partners in the process, and exploring holistic approaches that move towards a broader definition of value, that will take you far beyond cash transactions towards partnerships that transform.
Evidence and expertise will guide smart investments in new capacity and capability. Inspiring workshops will facilitate two-way learning, they will bring your people along on the journey, hear and navigate objections, shift mindsets, and move organisational culture. We will co-design new structures and manage the transition with transparency and kindness.
Our work together will likely culminate in a highly-tailored Roadmap, which clearly sets the direction and guides your next steps towards the new ambition. We will explore, embed our learning, and lay the tracks for future innovations as we go.
This will take time and thought, we will find our cadence as the work flexes and flows with other projects and priorities. That’s why these strategy, design, and innovation projects last for a minimum of 12 months.
This will be an investment that shapes your new organisational intention, it's an investment in your future income, in setting off in the right direction, in charting and equipping yourself for the journey ahead, in navigating live opportunities and challenges, in having an expert sounding board for your decisions, in maintaining focus and avoiding common misadventures.
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“We genuinely feel lucky to have worked with you. You’ve guided us to take our funding partnerships to the next level. Everyone recognises the quality you have brought, the Roadmap is clear, compelling and challenging, and it stands out in the ICRC, there is nothing else of this standard circulating, that is for sure.”
- Emily van Lier, Former Senior Advisor, International Committee of the Red Cross (Switzerland)
Your Project
Your high-value partnerships strategy and design project will be as unique as your organisation and its singular confluence of perspectives, people, partners, culture, history, community, opportunities, and challenges.
To give you a better idea of what to expect, other major strategic funding design projects blend some of these:
Counsel and Workshops for Boards & Leaders
Collaborative Strategy Design
Case for Investment Crafting & Consultation
Design of Funder Engagement & Experience
Campaign Design & Structuring
Stakeholder and Funding Partner Consultations
Building Innovation Processes & Pipelines
Exploring and Embedding a New Major Income Stream
Integrating Existing Funding Streams
Reviewing and (Re)structuring Programmes
Testimonials
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“During my time here at OIST and before, at Max Planck, I have seen many consultants and many of their presentations and strategies – good and bad. Yours is the single best strategy presentation that I have seen. Really. It is objective, creative, and evidence-based, it is sensitive to us and where we are in our journey, it is real and implementable. Thank you.”
- Dr Peter Gruss, Former President of the Max Planck Society, and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan)
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“Craig guided our 500th Anniversary preparation, crafted a Case for Investment and structured our successful £15m+ RCP North Campaign, redesigned our approach to companies, refreshed partnerships with our biggest past donors, and helped us recruit a new Director of Development. He helped us to rediscover our belief and laid foundations for a high-performing team that has raised £5 million within the last 30 months.”
- Dr Ian Bullock, Chief Executive, Royal College of Physicians (UK)
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"Fantastic work and a clear, compelling presentation yesterday to the IDS Board. Your experience and insight have taken us a long way forward and shaped our future funding direction. Many thanks."
- Michael Anderson CB, CEO MedAccess (UK)
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“Thanks for your guidance and understanding, for your counsel, and the great discussions, over the past year – these have really helped us at Hato Hone St John to raise our ambitions. Your work has helped us to recognise and communicate the massive value that HHSJ can offer to our partners. We’ve come a long way together in the last year, and we’ve certainly got a much stronger confidence and clarity on how to build balanced, impactful, and joyful partnerships with our corporate partners!”
- Natalie Davis, Head of Customer Experience, Digital, & Brand at Hato Hone St John, Aotearoa New Zealand