Bright Hope World is a relational, faith-based organisation. We are driven by our vision, with the bounds of our mission and values. We do not however set concrete long-term goals nor detailed operational strategies.

This may seem unusual, particularly given the number of businesspeople and entrepreneurs within our team, but it is an approach that has developed over the better part of three decades. Rather than determining in detail how much money we seek to raise, where our next partners should come from or where our donors will be, we have instead learned to be attuned to where God is leading us.

This does not mean we are careless, or lack a professional approach to what we do. In fact, we maintain very detailed and insightful systems for monitoring every part of our operation. We measure everything that can possibly be measured, and analyse a raft of trends and exceptions in this process. Likewise, our operational decision-making is robust and supported by good analysis.

It just means that, because we are primarily relational and focused on going where God leads, we hold our plans with open hands. We move in the directions we feel are right, and aim to be responsive and nimble.

We do not seek to raise tens of millions of dollars and grow rapidly, nor do we believe our model is infinitely scalable. Our emphasis on relationships means that we need to constrain growth to ensure this core aspect of our mission does not become compromised.

Our strategic focus is, instead, oriented towards of value of sustainability. Because we believe what we and our partners are doing is important, we want to ensure we can continue doing it as long as we are needed.

To ensure we can do so, we have divided Bright Hope World into four key areas, and have developed key strategies in each area to ensure we are able to assist the poorest of the poor for many years to come:

• Our Partners: We are constantly seeking new ways to enable our partners to be self-sustaining and avoid dependency. We are exploring new ideas and learnings with them to empower communities and to support effective outreach.
• Our Partnership Facilitators: We are growing in our ability to support and care for our team, particularly given how much they sacrifice to serve with us. We are working to identify and develop new Partnership Facilitators to share the load and ensure we are equipped to identify and develop great new partners in the future.
• Our Donors: We are working to diversify our donor base both geographically and in terms of donor type. We want to be continually growing in our ability to communicate what God is doing through our partners. We want to be effective in engaging our donors and providing opportunities for involvement without compromising our values and the pre-eminence of our partners.
• Our Leadership Team: We want to ensure the next generation of leadership of Bright Hope World is as good as the last. This involves extracting and building on institutional knowledge and experience and ensuring we understand the basis for good decision-making around partnerships. We are also focused on ensuring that every capability within Bright Hope World is subject to an effective succession plan so that we can continue what we do into the future without interruption.

As we work on our strategic plan – which is a constantly moving and updated tool – we keep a close eye on the areas where we are strong, and where we have a degree of vulnerability or challenge.

We consider we are particularly strong in the following areas:

• We continue to find and work well with amazing partners through whom God is doing amazing things. Our partnerships have continued to thrive and have become increasingly self-sustaining.
• We are extremely good at finding and developing new partners.
• We have a stable and strong funding base. Our level of donations is climbing whereas many similar organisations are facing decline.
• Our level of international support has grown.
• We are working well with our donor base and are communicating the work our partners are doing effectively.
• We have an exceptionally committed and capable team, which is increasingly diverse in terms of age.
• We have addressed most of our capability vulnerabilities and are in a strong position for the future.
• We have stuck to our values and not allowed ourselves to become driven by something other than God’s mission and our partners’ needs.

Despite these areas of growth and strength, we consider the following areas as our key vulnerabilities and will focus strategic efforts in these areas over the next five years:

• It takes considerable time for our Partnership Facilitators to reach confidence in identifying new partnership opportunities. This is hampered by limitations in time and availability in a volunteer team.
• Replacing our New Partnerships Facilitator in time will be very difficult. Instead we have developed a strategy to spread this capability among a number of team members.
• The desire among some areas of our donor base to visit partners is difficult for us to cater to. We must protect our partners in this regard, but this can limit our ability to retain donors.
• We acknowledge that the way we do things is increasingly divergent from the norm. Our resistance to a marketing and donor-driven operation is increasingly aberrant.

Overall, the view of the Bright Hope World team is one of confidence. We have continued to seek God as we develop and resource partnerships and have been blessed to see the success of our partners in the field. As we have sought to refine our strategic focus, and align with where God is working, a number of ‘field trends’ have developed:

• We are increasingly focused on the Muslim world. This is less in the Middle East than in Northern India and Southeast Asia.
• We are moving away from adding partners in new countries, and looking to build networks in existing countries through existing partners. However, we must remain open to where God leads.
• We have moved away from funding secondary and tertiary education, and moved more towards community empowerment and vocational training. Education is critical, but is must ensure power remains in the hands of parents and leads to employment or self-provision.
• The role of Foundations for Farming, table banking and microloans continues to strengthen.
• Our focus is, as much as possible, to start small and stay small. We work best at the ‘grass roots’.
• We consider self-sustainability with every partnership. It is not always possible, but it is always explored.

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