WESSA Strategic Review Report_2022

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES AND OBJECTIVES

Resource Mobilisation, Fundraising and Communications

Targeted marketing and strategic communications are fundamental pre-requisites to successful resource mobilisation and fundraising. The Resource Mobilisation, Fundraising and Communications Working Group provided key guidelines to take WESSA forward on a strategic supporter journey. This include the following: • Appoint a Fundraising Manager and a Marketing and Communications Manager as a matter of urgency • Approval of a Marketing budget • Re-purposing and developing the WESSA brand to garner wide support. • Communicating the achievements of WESSA to different audiences for different purposes. • Identifying the important stakeholder groups and alliances to support the WESSA cause. • Diversifying the income streams of WESSA and building fundraising capacity. • Ensuing the best use of existing resources and assets and, where required, mobilising new resources. • Enabling WESSA to become finically sustainable through annuity income streams. • Making the call to action more accessible and relatable by using storytelling and case studies in our communications and marketing.

Finance Governance and Human Resources • We will develop a ‘fit for purpose’ model for WESSA with business model principles and structure • We will initiate a full cost analysis of the WESSA Group including all properties • A Governance Task Team will look at streamlining the Group structure • We will establish an investment vehicle for WESSA – a WESSA Trust Fund • We will optimise a legacy request strategy • We will ensure WESSA liquidity and sustainable reserves • We will develop a risk matrix as a tool to measure and manage financial health of WESSA • We will determine our transition needs to ensure financial sustainability, with milestones. • We will undertake a skills audit of core critical and scarce skills to identify gaps and capacity (Learning and development needs} • We will optimize the current Volunteer Program with Membership to strengthen capacity of our work (Act) • We will focus on succession planning and develop a 5-year succession plan • We will focus on employee wellness to promote a supportive culture leading to our becoming an employer of choice • We will instil a culture of continuous learning for all our stakeholders • We will determine the skills gaps once the strategy is finalized • We will undertake a high level review of key HR policies to ensure there is alignment with all WESSA stakeholders i.e. WESSA staff, membership regions and branches. • We will determine the transition needs to ensure HR are in place, with milestones. This strategy does depend on two key support systems being put in place. The first is the appointment of a Senior Marketing and Communications Manager and the second is the employment of a Senior Fundraising and Business Development Manager.

Our aim is to develop an effective communication and marketing strategy to amplify the work and the success of WESSA so that, in turn, we can begin to develop a coherent fundraising and resource mobilisation plan. The one needs to follow the other.

Ultimately, we seek to diversify the revenue streams of WESSA on the back of i) great achievements and ii) an urgency and imperative to solve pressing environmental and conservation issues that impact on human wellbeing. Currently WESSA is almost entirely reliant on project funding, grants and income from education centres. There is no active systematic fundraising from individuals nor is there a focus on trusts and foundations to support our work. The key part of our fundraising strategy will be to maximise opportunities that already exist which we can further develop. These include: • Fundraising from individuals at scale – i.e., small amounts at high volumes e.g. face-to-face fundraising. • Targeted Fundraising via specific campaigns (including an endowment fund) • Fundraising from high-net-worth individuals (the donor journey) • Legacy planning (bequests) • Events e.g. auctions and sporting events

• Trusts and Foundations • Corporate partnerships

• Leveraged assets such as our properties • Grant writing for large international grants • Partnerships with other NGOs • Annuity income via MySchool/My Planet

• Cause-related marketing and fundraising opportunities • Investigating new funding models such as blockchains

PAGE 24 PAGE 24

PAGE 25