2018 - 2019
- Jack Lewars, COO
School of Hard Knocks is intrinsically bound up in sport. Unsurprisingly, therefore, we often use sports metaphors – to describe the charity, to help our participants, to inform supporters. The trick, however, is knowing which metaphor to use.
2018-19 is set to be a key year for SOHK. In some ways, it will be a year of consolidation – recently promoted into ‘the big leagues’, after several years of rapid growth, the team needs to get used to working at our new scale. We have also brought a number of new faces into our squad and need to give them time to gel with their new teammates.
The year ahead is also the year to kick on, though. We narrowly missed out on ‘promotion’ to the select group (around 3%) of UK charities that turn over £1m or more; and we’re hungry to get to that level, so that we can meet slightly more of the huge need that we see in England, Scotland and Wales.
To achieve this, we need a more sustainable revenue base to keep our programmes running and invest in crucial parts of the business, such as fundraising, administration and staff training. We are building a fundraising team from the bottom up; funning our first major individual giving campaigns, targeting grassroots and major donors; and seeking trading revenue to subsidise our core costs.
Finally, 2018-19 might be a year to reinvent ourselves. As Ken says in his introduction, the need we see in the UK has fundamentally changed in the last couple of years. It may well change again after Brexit.
Our frontline staff, who bring a huge range of understanding, expertise and experience to their roles, are constantly reflecting on the service we deliver. The message we hear from them is that we may need a radical overhaul of what we deliver and what the goals of our services are. We are therefore working with a range of internal and external stakeholders to write new modules, develop our referral pathways and ultimately offer a more holistic service.