Increasing the Capacity of Individuals, Families and Communities

Revenue Sources

The ACHIEVE Process | Step 2 Clarify Your Income Strategy

STEP 1 Assess Your Goals and Financial Resource Capacity

Page:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

SWOT Analysis
After you have listed your goals and your present revenue sources, assess your potential for generating revenue. To do this, involve your board leadership and senior staff, and plan to take a day or two to discuss the results. You will use a simple analytical tool to understand your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This is called a SWOT Analysis. For more information on using a SWOT Analysis, see the Delivering Training and Technical Assistance guidebook, part of the National Resource Center’s Intermediary Development Series.

SWOT Analysis enables you to assess your present financial resource strengths and weaknesses and evaluate the opportunities and threats around you. The result of an accurate SWOT is a refined set of statements about your organization that will help you focus on what matters most to help generate more revenue. To complete a financial resources SWOT, answer the following questions in the spaces provided on your worksheet (see sample on next page).

Sample SWOT Statements SWOT Area Statements about your organization Strengths     Weaknesses     Opportunities     Threats

Your organization’s revenue resource Strengths:

• What financial resources do you have? (cash, people, expertise, etc.)
• Of the 14 revenue sources, which one(s) generate most of your income?
• What are your revenue generating advantages? Are any of these unique to you?
• What do you do well in fundraising?
• What do your constituents see as your resource strengths?

Don’t be modest; be realistic. Think about your resource strengths in relation to other nonprofit organizations in your service area and those that are your competitors.

Your financial resource Weaknesses:

• Are you underutilizing your board, community relations, development budget, reputation or staff? If so, what would it look like of you were using them fully?
• Which of your present revenue generating activities could you improve?
• Which do you do poorly?
• What revenue generating tactics should you stop doing altogether?
• Are other similar organizations in your geographic area doing any better than you?

Take a hard look at your results over the past several seasons in all areas of resource generation. Most organizations will have several revenue generating activities that are working well, some that are marginal and a few that are poor.

Your financial resource Opportunities:

• Have you been invited to partner with another organization? How was this evaluated in terms of risk and potential reward?
• What new activity might take a combination of faith and action to undertake?
• What are the open doors facing your organization?
• What are the interesting trends in your field?

Opportunity comes in all shapes and sizes and from unexpected places and people. It might occur in a report or study that features your organization or area of service. It may appear during a season of change—in leadership, strategic direction, the financial health at a competitor organization, the advent of a new technology, the offer of a building, a sharp reduction in land costs, etc. Be open to revisiting an old opportunity rejected previously but now worth considering.

Your financial resource Threats:

• What financial resource obstacles do you face?
• Are any new regulations, increased costs or declining returns affecting your revenue generating ability and return on investment?
• Is there adverse public reaction to a revenue generating technique you are using?
• Is your size, visibility, success or revenue track record likely to hurt you in the future?
• Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
• Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your organization?

Answer the questions in each of the four SWOT areas with several brief one-sentence statements. Once you have a list of statements, you are ready to winnow the list to a few statements in each SWOT area. Circle the two or three in each SWOT area that are most urgent and important, and then ask the following:

• Where can a revenue source capitalize on a strength?
• What weaknesses must you minimize or eliminate to gain best advantage for a new or enhanced revenue source?
• Which opportunities appear to support a strength or help eliminate a weakness?
• Which of the threats could materialize in the next 12 months and undermine an income strategy?

In the last section of your worksheet, write the two or three key statements per SWOT area that focus your attention and future activities in a financial resource strategy that:

• builds on a strength
• diminishes or eliminates a weakness
• embraces an opportunity to build on a strength and or diminish a weakness
• reduces a threat

Page:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

The ACHIEVE Process | Step 2 Clarify Your Income Strategy