Samaritans

How we helped Samaritans to learn from developing their new five-year strategy

Project highlights

Evaluating strategy
Organisational learning
UK-wide

Add Your Heading Text Here

Loading...

Throughout the work we found the team incredibly supportive, balanced and communicative. They took the time to understand our organisation and were thoughtful in proposing ways we could apply the learning into the future. The end report has been extremely helpful to us to reflect on immediate steps to strengthen our approach in the short-term, and it will no doubt will be helpful when we come to develop our next strategy. Thank you!

Alex Devereux -

Head of Planning, Performance and Programmes

Samaritans

Services provided

Loading...

The project brief

Samaritans launched their five-year strategy, ‘Tackling Suicide Together’, after consulting widely with staff, volunteers and stakeholders. This was a new way of creating strategy for Samaritans. They wanted to learn from the process and capture the lessons for the future.

Our approach

There was a wealth of data to inform our evaluation. Samaritans had documented communications, discussions and decisions at every stage of the process. Board members had also interviewed key stakeholders at every level of the organisation about their experience of the process.

We built a structure to systematically review and codify all the documents and interview transcripts. This enabled us to identify themes and learning points in the following categories:

• The strategy development process itself
• Communication and engagement
• The content of the resulting strategy

Sharing our findings

We tested our findings with the Executive Team before producing a concise report. Our report summarised the learning themes and provided recommendations for the future in two categories:

• Good practice from the process that should be replicated in future
• Improving the process in future

It’s time to make confident decisions about the future.

More case studies

BBC Children in Need

How we helped BBC Children in Need understand the difference their Covid response made.

Street Soccer London

How we helped Street Soccer London demonstrate how football changes young people’s lives in London.

City Bridge Foundation

How we helped City Bridge Foundation bring together the organisations they fund, to learn, celebrate and re-energise after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Overcoming Conflict

How we have helped organisations investigate and address senior level conflict and behavioural challenges.

Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales

How we’re supporting Lloyds Bank Foundation to explore new ways of building a sustainable future for small charities and the people they support

Versus Arthritis

How we helped Versus Arthritis learn how to implement an evidence-based pain management programme at scale.

Wellcome

How we supported Wellcome and their partners BBC Children in Need to understand the role informal science learning can play in children and young people’s personal and social development

Mind and Co-op Charity Partnership

How we helped Co-op and their partners Mind, SAMH and Inspire to demonstrate the impact of projects to build community resilience

The Food Foundation

How we helped The Food Foundation and their partners show the difference they were making to veg consumption across the UK